The Mysterious Case of the NUFC Player of the Season True Faith

First up, a deceptively simple trivia teaser: who won NUFC player of the season in 1995-96?

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And while you ponder that, I’ll begin…

Amidst the endless tyranny of that scourge of modern life, the WhatsApp group, the occasional moment of genuine insight can emerge. And so it was, as Anthony Gordon was crowned Player of the Season a few weeks ago (I don’t think an actual crown is involved btw), when the little teaser I’ve asked above pinged into my notifications.*

None of us will ever forget 1995-96, try as we might. And believe you me, try I most certainly have for the last 30 years. Having lived through it, I’m unable to watch a moment of retrospective highlights or even open a page of Martin Hardy’s excellent (so I’m told) “Touching Distance”. There are some traumas even the best of therapists can’t resolve. But whatever your state of repression, it’s not hard to list candidates for player of that particular season.

I mean, no need to look past Sir Les, right, and his 29 goals? Wrong. Beardsley, then? On his last legs but they still twinkled. Nope. In which case, surely Bobby Lee, the driving force of that midfield and still scoring goals regularly? Shake of the head again. Got to be Davide and his unmatchable charisma and creativity? Still wrong.

Because – bewildering head fuck – the actual official player of the season for our best league campaign in 70 years, the ultimate symbol of the glorious Entertainers was… Darren Peacock.

Excuse me?

But steady yourself, because there’s more. It turns out this isn’t an isolated occurrence. The previous year (1994-95) Barry Venison got the nod – making it a double for shocking haircuts and animal-related surnames – while the following year (1996-97) it would go to Steve Watson. So there we have it, the defining players of the Keegan era – Venison, Peacock, and Watson – with Andy Cole the sole attacking exception in 1993-94.

Now this set me thinking. Aren’t we all supposed to be incurable romantics up in this footballing hotbed? Lovers of KK’s alleged naivety and worshippers of goalscoring number 9s as we recuperate from a hard day down the coal mines? What a curious trio of footballing Roundheads we chose as a player of the year during our era of greatest attacking flair, unfashionable defensively minded triers with two international caps between them.

Thinking personally, there might be more to it than meets the eye. I can’t say I ever had any great affection for big Dazzer – a thinking man’s Brian Kilcline – but Watson, yes, and Venison even more so. He might not have won national plaudits (at least until a couple of random Wembley friendlies), but we all recognised how vital he was to that promotion team and then in the first couple of seasons up. Signing him and playing him as a defensive midfielder might just be one of Keegan’s best decisions in management.

But it’s more than that. When I started going to the match, my hero was David McCreery. My brother’s was Peter Jackson. Not glamorous players. Grafters notable for the determination and their work ethic. Heroes precisely because they lacked the flair and easy skill of others. Heroes we could relate to and identify with.

Take a closer look at who has, and who hasn’t, won our player of the season in recent times and there’s an unmistakable pattern. Ferdinand, Asprilla, Bellamy, Cisse, Ba, Remy, Mitrovic, Gayle, Isak. Not a sniff. Same for Ginola, Robert, Cabaye, Ben Arfa, and pretty much any decent attacking player of the last 20 years. And it’s not like they had much competition across the last 20 seasons.

Instead, feast your eyes on this astonishing list, the NUFC Player of the Season for twelve consecutive seasons between 2007 and 2018 and compare it to my other list of non-winners above: Nicky Butt, Habib Beye, Sébastien Bassong, José Enrique, Fabricio Coloccini, Tim Krul, Davide Santon, Mike Williamson, Daryl Janmaat, Rob Elliot, Ciaran Clark, Jamaal Lascelles.

Some of these I get. As it happens, I believed passionately that Habib Beye was the future, a pearl amidst a dog turd of a season. Mind you, I once thought the same about Didier Domi. In fact looking at this list, we all seem to have a peculiar fancy for overseas full backs. Enrique won’t come as too much of a surprise, I suppose, but others? And then there’s Rob Elliot? He only played in 22 matches in all competitions the season he won it. Then again maybe that explains it. Nicky B**t? You’ll be telling me Michael Owen won it next.

Except he couldn’t have done because he wasn’t a defender. A dozen seasons with the prize distributed as follows: one defensive midfielder, two goalies, four full backs, and five centre-backs.

In relegation seasons and dour survival fights, maybe that’s understandable. There were plenty of them in those years, that’s for sure. But even when we went up as Champions twice, scoring a hatful of goals, the award went to a defender – Enrique and then Clark.

No, I think it’s deeper than that. Yes, we’re prone to romantic swoons over charisma and flair, but only because our default setting is to admire hard work and graft, regardless of natural talent. Not for nothing does Dan Jackson devote a whole chapter of his history of North-easterners to “Hard Work and Hedonism”. The two co-exist in symbiosis. The need for the latter derives from the former.

Or to put it another way, our love for Tino (the original), Philippe Albert, and Davide is made possible by our admiration for Peacock, Watson, and Venison. This is the psyche of St James’.

Who said there was no insight in a WhatsApp group?

Matthew Philpotts

* I can take no credit whatsoever for noticing any of this. I just shamelessly borrowed it from Ed to write an article.