Welcome to the 15th Fiver Christmas Awards. Or is it the 16th? Oh, we don’t know. We’ve disingenuously pretended to forget how many times we’ve held these awards at least a dozen times, so there’s a starting point for anyone who cares enough to tot it up. Furthermore, it’s now more than a decade since we awarded Bayer Leverkusen an unprecedented Fiver Christmas Awards quadruple, and in honour of their legendary coach Klaus Toppmöller (kids, ask your grandparents) we declare that now is a time for cigarettes and booze. And curly hair, with locks springy enough to hold a lit cigarette, just in case you have a can of Purple Tin and a quadruple gin on the go at the same time. But as well as it being time for cigarettes and booze, and hairstyles specifically designed to assist in the consumption of cigarettes and booze, it’s also time to dole out a few awards. Mainly because we sense you’re losing interest already, and if we don’t start soon, the Fiver will be in your bin folder quicker than we can say “Gah!”, “Wah!” and “Oh reader! How could you!?”
THE BANKSY AWARD FOR WRITING ON THE WALL
The Guardian’s monkeys-and-typewriters MBM operation concluded their 2010 World Cup final report thus: “Congratulations to Spain!!! Next stop Brazil 2014! Which is a meltdown for the hosts waiting to happen. See you all then for that one!” Well done to us, then, though to be honest it didn’t take the love child of Nostradamus and Russell Grant to work out that Brazil were destined to be crushed under the ludicrous weight of expectation at their own World Cup. Look what happened to them in 1950, for example, and they had a good side back then. Sure enough, Germany duly scored seven times past music-hall tumbling act David Luiz and 10 living statues the CBF had shipped in from Covent Garden. The match, which would have ended 10-0 were it not for the efforts of brave Brazilian hero Mesut Özil, ensured this World Cup would be remembered as one of the more eventful ones, because after a dismal set of knockout ties it had been heading right down the swanny beforehand. In this sense, Brazil saved their own World Cup, so well done to them for that. Treble caipirinhas all round!
THE ADRYAN AWARD FOR PREPOSTEROUS OVER-REACTION
Yes, this business about the 2014 World Cup flirting with the swanny. Anyone who gave the 2002, 2006 and 2010 World Cups, plus Euro 2004, 2008 and 2012, more than a cursory glance will be aware that – while they were good fun in the moment, as major championships invariably are – they weren’t actually much cop. Point this out at the time, however, and one risked being chased into the sea by a pompous mob wielding pointed sticks and cast-iron statuettes of Valeriy Lobanovskyi, a shower desperate to convince themselves they were living through a golden age of football, as opposed to being members of a generation who unfortunately missed it by five decades. Ah well, bad luck, that was the Fiver’s fate too. Oddly enough, these very same people then started using that middling-at-best stretch of tournaments to illustrate, by way of juxtaposition, the BEST EVER nature of the 2014 World Cup, which was the BEST EVER. They’re probably BEST NEVER listened to, these folk. The over-heated brouhaha began pretty much from the get-go, what with Brazil being bobbins, Robin van Persie doing a good goal, and Japan and Greece playing out a fascinating scoreless draw which revealed layer upon layer of complexity as time went on, like a fine wine, or a free jazz album, or a break-up letter. But group stages are no time to be judging tournaments, and the knockout matches reverted to modern type: diverting enough when they were on, but good luck trying to convince someone they were classics in 10 years’ time.
THE HUTTON INQUIRY WHITEWASH AWARD
Fair play to Fifa for leaving no stone unturned as it conducted a rigorous investigation into, er, itself and reached the conclusion that there was absolutely nothing untoward about the way that Russia and Qatar were handed the next two World Cups, whilst making sure to toe-punt the Football Association where it hurts for good measure. You might think you smell a rat, but that’s actually just the 24-course lunch it awarded itself as a reward for its fine work. You also might think you can hear Michael Garcia complaining about the way his report has been mishandled, plus a couple of people blowing some whistles, and a few concerned folk asking what’s going to be done about those hundreds of dead migrant workers who are putting the infrastructure together in Qatar, but that’s just Sepp Blatter chuckling as he watches Tim Roth’s outstanding portrayal of him in the critically acclaimed Fifa film for the 56th time. So hats off to Fifa, a great bunch of lads, the very best humanity has to offer, a shining example for us all to follow.
THE TONY BLAIR / GORDON BROWN AWARD FOR MAKING A ROYAL BALLS OF EVERYTHING THEN LETTING SOME OTHER POOR HAPLESS SOD TAKE ALL THE FLAK
Steve Gerrard, Gerrard, he slipped on his f%£*$&g a^”e. Well, you’ve got that damn straight. But perhaps it’s time to give the poor old boy a break. Partly because he’s condemned to replay that moment in his head for, at a conservative estimate, ooh, the rest of eternity. Sing all you like, it’s going to make little difference to a soul in torment. But mainly we should lay off because Gerrard’s pratfall wasn’t actually the point the league title slipped through Liverpool’s fingers. That happened at 3.27pm on Sunday 13 April, when a dozy Victor Moses needlessly lost control of the ball in midfield against Manchester City, panicking Jordan ‘Legs of Steven’ Henderson into a rash challenge which saw him sent off and suspended for the majority of the run-in. Bye bye, chances! Bye bye! But if passing the blame on to Moses for Liverpool’s end-of-season debacle seems overly harsh – he was only an on-loan observer for most of the campaign after all – then let’s hoick the opprobrium towards King Brenny instead, for tactics that serial title-winner José Mourinho wouldn’t have considered in a month of Super Sundays. Put it this way: if Nemanja Matic slips over on the halfway line during a crucial game of this season’s run-in, do you think the Demba Ba of this situation will have fewer than eight men to beat?
THE ROBBIE SAVAGE AWARD FOR CONFUSION
Liverpool’s 2013-14 campaign provided, at some point along the season, something for absolutely everyone to enjoy, with the possible exception of Brighton and Hove Albion fans, who never like to see Crystal Palace supporters happy. But their collapse, which couldn’t have been more spectacular had the entire team been perched in human pyramid formation on the back seat of a Ford Model T with no suspension being driven down a rickety wooden pier with several planks missing from the floor, has tended to obscure the fact that Chelsea turned their season’s end into a Hollywood silent comedy too. Their last six games saw them drop four points at home to Sunderland and Norwich which would have given them the title, and lose a winning lead in the Big Cup semis against Atlético. No amount of jigging up and down the touchline, or post-hoc rationalisation convincing yourself you didn’t care, alters that fact. Manchester City can therefore consider themselves very fortunate indeed that they were competing against such a gaggle of chancers. Mind you, Chelsea do at least appear to have learned their lesson if the first half of this season is anything to go by, unlike Liverpool, who probably do deserve the lion’s share of the mocking, now we come to think about it. Actually, we’re not quite sure what we’re trying to say here. Last year’s top three were all useless? Hmm. Can we retrospectively award the title to Arsenal? They could do with cheering up. The FA Cup doesn’t seem to have done much good.
THE APPLES, MOUTHWASH, FLOSS AND SUGAR-FREE GUM AWARD FOR DENTAL HEALTH
Luis Suárez is over now, just another skilful shill doing a turn for a club that always wins stuff. Messi, Him, Rodríguez, Neymar, these goons are 10 a penny. But Suárez used to have a unique selling point. Playing for giants whose glory days were long past – Ajax, Liverpool, Uruguay – each goal was imbued with a little Maradona-at-Napoli renegade charm, some street-fighting sass, a cutting edge. Erm. Anyway, now he’s turning on a sixpence, wriggling free of trouble and belting them home in a similar manner for Barça. Great goals, but so what? He’s still got Uruguay, of course, so hats off to what currently stands as his last hurrah, his performance at the 2014 World Cup. Man of the tournament? The Fiver should say so, because nobody’s going to forget his two appearances in a hurry: an evisceration of England on one-and-a-half legs, plus that bite against Italy. Here’s a question: do you know anyone who, upon hearing what had happened, didn’t start laughing like a drain? No, us neither. And that applies to the bite as well.
THE DIEGO MARADONA 1984 COPA DEL REY MEMORIAL AWARD FOR ACCEPTING DEFEAT WITH DIGNITY
Poor old Atlético Madrid. Were it not for approximately 90 seconds’ worth of football, split in half and tacked on to the end of two separate Big Cup finals, they’d have been European champions in 1974 and 2014. But it wasn’t to be. Forty years ago, Bayern Munich equalised late, then ran out 4-0 winners in a replay, Gerd Müller scoring the sort of hat-trick that makes modern-day statistical usurper Lionel Messi look like the two-bit chancer the World Cup final proved him to be. Anyway, we digress. This time round, Atlético were seconds away from beating city rivals Real, but Sergio Ramos, the Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck de nos jours, denied them their first European Cup with a header in the very last act of added time. With strange echoes of ‘74, Atlético again ended up shipping four, on this occasion by the end of extra-time. At which point Raphaël Varane kicked the ball in the vague direction of Atlético boss Diego Simeone, and nearly had his head whipped clean off his shoulders for his trouble, first as Simeone launched the ball back at him, then storming on the pitch with a view to instigating a Hegelian dialectic. Marvellous entertainment, go on my son, get right into him, etc. And no, the Fiver can’t be bothered to think of the kids. To hell with the kids.
THE RICHARD KEYS ‘IT WAS JUST BANTER’ AWARD
The LMA really did excel itself when it put out that statement in defence of Malky Mackay in the wake of the G@y Snake Scandal, saying messages allegedly exchanged with Iain Moody were merely a case of an eejit “letting off steam to a friend during some friendly text message banter”. Oh LMA! Oh Malky! Oh friendly text message banter! You didn’t think that one through, did you? Friendly text message banter, for crying out loud. What a collection of clowns, a purportedly serious organisation carrying on as though it’s run by the Lad Bible. It’s come to something when Vinny T comes up smelling of roses.
THE NIGEL FARAGE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AWARD FOR IMPROVING RACE RELATIONS BEYOND ALL EXPECTATIONS
Fortunately for Mackay, he did not have to wait long until he was back in the game and how nice that, in Dave Whelan, he had a boss at Wigan Athletic who was willing to take the heat off his back by enraging the Jewish and Chinese communities with some choice comments of his own. A selfless act, you’ll no doubt agree, and surely Whelan deserves our respect for falling on his sword so shambolically, an act of bravery that surely surpasses the time that he broke his leg playing at Wembley. A time he doesn’t like to talk about. Oh no.
THE KEITH BURKINSHAW THERE-USED-TO-BE-A-FOOTBALL-CLUB-OVER-THERE AWARD
Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, West Ham, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Hull City, QPR, Cardiff City, Nasty Leeds, The Pope’s O’Rangers, The Queen’s Celtic, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Milan and Bayern Munich. Previous winner: Tottenham Hotspur (1984).
THE TRINNY AND SUSANNAH AWARD FOR BEST-DRESSED MANAGER
Forget Jogi Löw and his designer jumpers or Pep Guardiola’s touchline denim, this was the year when Tactics Tim wowed the fashion world by giving a new lease of life to the humble gilet.
THE BOB SHANKLY / WILLIE WADDELL / LORD FERG / JIM McLEAN AWARD FOR CARTEL-BUSTING
This one’s shared between Ronny Deila and Peter Lawwell, whose sterling efforts on the bench and in the boardroom at Parkhead are threatening to make the Scottish title race a bit more interesting than it has been of late. Since 1985, if we’re being exact. Whether Caley Thistle, Dundee United or the Accies can sustain their challenges or not in the new year is a moot point, but the fact we’ve got to December and the title hasn’t been decided yet puts Scottish football ahead of Germany’s in at least one respect. And this represents progress, of sorts. Who said the Scottish top flight couldn’t do without Pope’s O’Rangers? Well, take a look. Here, does anyone fancy double-checking the Queen’s Celtic’s accounts? Find something eyebrow-raising in there, hope Ally McCoist somehow keeps hold of the Ibrox gig, and Scottish football really could be on to something for the next few years.
THE PIERS MORGAN AWARD FOR BEST SELF-AGGRANDISING IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY
It takes a special sort of man to be Alan Pardew. Being Alan Pardew is not an easy act to pull off and it is often best to leave it to the expert. Which brings us neatly on to Alan Pardew. Sure, he’s not the most popular man on Tyneside, second only in the hate stakes to Big Mike Ashley, last seen earning rave reviews for some impromptu street comedy outside a pub in the West End. But does he let that get him down? As if. Whether it’s modestly awarding credit to himself for Newcastle’s form or announcing during a tricky run of form that he was going to keep his spirits high by going home and polishing the manager of the year trophy he won two years ago, at least we now know that Pardew doesn’t shirk his responsibilities when it comes to household chores.
THE MAROUANE FELLAINI, JUAN MATA AND ANDER HERRERA AWARD FOR GIVING PEOPLE A CHANCE
This upsurge Manchester United are currently enjoying … maybe poor old Davie Moyes had an eye for a player after all, huh?
THE BLOKE FROM STOKE STANDING IN THE BACKGROUND WINCING AT THE NEWS WILSON PALACIOS COST £8m AWARD FOR MOST CONCERNED FOOTBALL FANS
That bunch of … entitled Arsenal supporters who felt compelled to gang up on their club’s manager – a senior citizen – by effing, jeffing and shouting abuse at him as he attempted to board a London-bound train in Stoke. Honourable mention: the particularly overfamiliar Arsenal fan among this bunch who urged “Joely” Campbell to “get out while you still can”, as if the Costa Rican striker was some sort of exceptionally precocious individual whose footballing genius is unappreciated by his manager, rather than … er, some bog-standard striker who scored eight goals in 32 appearances on loan at Olympiakos last season.
THE DR NICK RIVIERA AWARD FOR BEST MEDICAL ADVICE
Fulham fans were hopeful of avoiding relegation when they sacked René Meulensteen, the true mastermind behind Manchester United’s success during the Lord Ferg era, and replaced him with Felix Magath, winner of three Bundesliga titles with Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg. Here was a manager who was going to whip the £12m Kostas Mitroglou into shape, all right, and Fulham did get a couple of wins that briefly made it look like they were going to stay up. But down they did go and Magath was soon on his way, with stories emerging that the German had told Brede Hangeland to treat leg-knack with a lump of cheese. Then again, Germany did win the World Cup. Maybe he was on to something. You wait, they’ll soon be stocking up on emmenthal and brie at St George’s Park.
THE PETER KAY ‘AVE-IT’ AWARD FOR UNAPOLOGETIC 19th CENTURY TACTICS
José Mourinho wasn’t happy when West Ham turned up at Stamford Bridge in January with the sole aim of leaving with a point, the Hammers going to the trouble of boarding up their goal and placing a couple of grand pianos and Andy Carroll in front of it just to make sure. And it worked, a triumphant 0-0 victory for West Ham, Big Sam Allardyce brilliantly blunt when it was put to him that Mourinho had accused him of archaic tactics. “Ha Ha Ha Ha!” he chortled. “He can’t take it, can he? He can’t take it because we’ve out-tactic-ed him, out-witted him. He just can’t cope. He can tell me all he wants. I don’t give a sh1te.”
THE NATIONAL RAIL AWARD FOR BEST CUSTOMER SERVICES
This would also be heading the way of Big Sam if it wasn’t for West Ham’s turnaround this season, which has forced many fans to do a sheepish about-turn about their manager, but luckily charm school’s Nasty Nige Pearson has been busy endearing himself to the Leicester City faithful, allegedly telling one to “[eff] off and die” during the defeat to Liverpool. You can understand both points of view. The fan had every right to be annoyed, they were losing to Liverpool, after all, and who does that these days?
THE BLOKE FROM MERSEYSIDE STANDING IN THE BACKGROUND PRODDING A SKY SPORTS NEWS MAN IN THE EAR WITH A GIANT RUBBER LOVE TRUNCHEON AWARD FOR MOST PROBING QUESTIONS
Brazilian columnist and TV presenter Mario Sergio Conti, who hit pay-dirt when he found himself sitting next to then Brazil manager Luiz Felipe Scolari on a flight from Rio to São Paulo during the World Cup, proceeded to interview him and had his scoop published in Brazil dailies Folha de S. Paulo and O Globo. Sadly for Conti, the passenger sitting beside him was not Big Phil, but a lookalike named Wladimir Palomo, who was travelling to participate in a TV comedy show in which he was playing the Brazil manager. Following apologies from both newspapers, Conti did likewise. “It was a mistake,” he sobbed. “I really thought he was Felipão. But there was no bad faith involved. At least this mistake has not harmed anyone, it has not influenced the elections or hit the stock markets.”
THE BILL GATES AWARD FOR SERVICES TO TECHNOLOGY
What an extraordinary year it has been for everyone’s favourite television personality and the poster boy for 21st century feminism, Richard Keys, who has been unstinting in his commitment to keeping the world entertained with his various bouts of score-settling, his burning sense of injustice and, of course, his recent discovery of something called the internet. On the one hand, you have to give it to him for his willingness to roll with the times and embrace the digital age, but on the other, you don’t have to do that at all, you just have to sit back and let his utter magnificence wash all over you. Where to begin? There was the baffling moment at the World Cup when Keys got himself into a right old mess as he tried to work out how goalline technology worked after France’s thoroughly uncontroversial strike against Honduras. “That wasn’t in. At any time. Told you this technology wasn’t foolroof,” Keys raged, before admitting that dark forces were not at work once he had found a photograph in which it was impossible to see the ball. “Got us another angle,” he wrote. “It was in.” A crucial intervention, but not the highlight of what came to be known as The Keys Kup. No, that was when Keys bought himself a video camera and decided to film his adventures with Hank Schrader. There they were, bantering in the car, an early-morning road trip that could only have been more tortuous if they had picked up Rutger Hauer’s character from The Hitcher along the way. It was award-winning stuff, even though Keys couldn’t quite get to grips with how the camera worked, and yet the best was still to come. Because Keys also has a blog. And recently he wrote a blog urging $tevie Mbe to leave Liverpool, a Partridgean work of art which contained a sudden diversion about his departure from Sky for some minor indiscretion. “I’m currently having the time of my life at BeIn Sports,” Keys boasted. “I can’t remember life being any better. But back to Steven.” At least he’s made himself parody-proof.
THE ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE AWARD FOR SELF AGGRANDISING FOOTBALLERS MASQUERADING AS CHARITY DO-GOODERS
Admit it, you’re struggling to remember the name of the cause they were trying to raise awareness of and so are they.
PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Demba Ba.
RUNNER-UP
Fred.
TEAM OF THE YEAR
Atlético Madrid.
BUMPER ONE-OFF FESTIVE TV & RADIO SPECIAL: ALL THE HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR PERIOD
Right, aye. You are joking, aren’t you?
MAIL! MAIL! MAIL!
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