Third of Season Awards

By: timmyg | November 24th, 2008

Most sports writers give half season and end of season awards. I’m going to buck that trend and give third-of-season awards.

The “Like a Rock” Bob Seger Award – Brede Hangeland
The pairing of Aaron Hughes and Brede Hangeland in central defense has been the biggest impact of the memorable Roy Hodgson era. But whereas Hughes is susceptible in the air, Hangeland is like the cookie monster – devouring all crosses, chips, flicks, and anything else within a 2 foot radius of his noggin. Although the quality shown by Hughes, Paintsil and Konchesky has helped make Fulham’s defense 4th best in the league, it all stems from the Norwegian. Even if we were to somehow halve his productivity in defense, the club would be light-years ahead of where we’ve been defensively. Without a doubt, the team’s MVP.

The Milk Carton Extraordinaire Award – Seol Ki-Hyeon
Okay, so he’s no Jari Litmanen, Simon Elliott, or Ahmad Elrich of year’s past. And there’s also Andranik and Dickson Etuhu offering up some serious competition this year. But what is up with this fella? After an entire offseason with fans wanting him gone, he starts the first two matches, scores a goal, gets relegated to the bench, has to go home to Korea for undisclosed personal reasons (which, if they’re serious, my deepest condolences), then injures his knee and is out for weeks. And although team news for the Tottenham match had him listed as back, physioroom.com says he’s out indefinitely. What will happen next to him, taken hostage by Somali pirates?

The Wedge Antilles Award – Bobby Zamora
In movie trilogies most minor characters either die early, or become major characters and then die (e.g. Fredo Corleone, Gollum). But Wedge managed to stay alive, and be a minor-yet-pivotal character in Star Wars – you know before Lucas went and made that prequel crap. Bobby Zamora’s role on the team is oddly akin. He’s not scoring goals and making the highlight reel, but his prowess and knocking-balls-down-ability is opening up slots in the opponents’ defense, which AJ has been all but willing to score from. Without Zamora, it would be really difficult to judge AJ’s impact. Without AJ, we’ve seen Zamora hold his own. Except when he has the plague.

The Brian McBride Award – Clint Dempsey
Granted he is the only American on the roster, but this award also goes for Yanks that embody desire, heart, and adversity. If Eddie Johnson was the only Yank at SW6 he probably wouldn’t win it. But Clint Dempsey has shown in his far too numerous 20 and 30 minute cameos that he deserves more, more, more. His goal against Portsmouth was paramount to the club’s resurgence and current top half position. Hopefully his start against Tottenham wasn’t just a one-time deal, and he doesn’t say “adios amigo” to club in January. Like McGod last year, and the year before that, and the year before that – we need this guy.

The Rex Grossman/Matt Cassell award – Roy Hodgson
What do Rex Grossman and Matt Cassell have in common? A lot. Both led/lead their teams to victory, but in the process cause the team’s fan bases to pull out their hair and give up on the team 20 times in one game. And Rex Grossman took the Bears to the Superbowl, while Cassell has kept the New England Patriots in contention despite losing their messiah, Tom Brady in the first game. Roy Hodgson kept the club afloat in the league in the greatest survival chase ever, has managed a current top-half table position, shored up the defense exponentially, and made shrewd transfer acquisitions. But while doing so he continually trotted out a 4-5-1 when he first arrived, not made substitutions in winnable matches, not starting Dempsey when he clearly should have been, never having a Plan B when Plan A wasn’t working, and kept Les Reed on staff. Roy has been a godsend to the club, but we fans will also question everything he does. And it really doesn’t make sense.