This is a post I made in March last year in General Discussion - lets you in on how the MOM and Player of the Month are selected.
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Thought this may interest some of you!
Ever wondered how the manager / player of the month is chosen?
Read on as I once took part in December 2006!!
I used to be on the committee at the Football Supporters' Federation and neither of the two people who would normally alternate at the voting could go and as it was in London on a Friday neither could the next few ''in line'' to attend, so I was asked to go along.
I needed to be in London for other reasons so went down the night before on the train.
The event was a lunch time do and I made my way to the gentlemen's club (all suited and booted) as instructed at noon, somewhere near Marble Arch and was greeted by a champagne reception. I was second there (apart from the Barclay's people) - soon took a look at the list to see who was invited - all of the 4 national team managers, people from Sky (Andy Gray), John Motson from the Beeb, loads of journos, reps from the PFA and league managers association and a few others I cant remember. I was to be seated next to Frank Clark (yes, our former manager!) and the journo Harry Harris (even the bloke from Barclays gave his apologise for that one!)
So loads were there (Terry Venables, the then England assistant manager was there instead of the current England manager, Lawrie Sanchez the Northern Ireland manager too, but no Scots / Welsh managers) and no Andy Gray / Sky rep.
I was on my 3/4th champagne and we are all stood in a room and the MC says ''OK, we are here for some serious food and drink, so lets get the formalities out of the way so we can enjoy ourselves.... Manager of the Month....''
He then read out the names of 4 managers in the running and their record for the month. He then asked if anyone had any other nominees (one person did.)
He then read out each name one by one and we all had to stick our hands up for which one we wanted to vote for. Ferguson won (and no I didnt vote for him).
The same process happened for player of the month. Ronaldo won (no I didnt vote for him).
End of voting, that was it - took about 4 minutes to sort it out!!!
Then double doors opened and a huge table with food waiting to be served is in front of us.
Proper 4 (maybe 5) course lunch..... whatever I wanted to drink, I just raised my hand and I was waited on..... when the box of expensive cigars and brandy came around, I was reprimanded for refusing a cigar (as a non smoker) by a journo who said ''I would have had it''.
Had a good chat with Frank Clark (said he was proud of the fact that he had signed Nicky Weaver! - I was polite and refrained from any criticism of his time at City!!) but the biggest shock of the afternoon was the attitude of the journos. They were all wingeing their arses off about how they couldn't wait for Wembley to re-open as they couldnt stand the journey to Cardiff.... (one in particular saying ''I can see Wembley from my house, can't wait for it to open) they then all re-told their ''horror stories'' of the Germany 2006 World Cup on having to walk the last 400 meters to each stadium with their lap tops in hand, as media could not park at the stadiums........ as if a free month in Germany with hotel, food, tickets for the games and travel costs for free wasn't good enough for the hacks......
John Motson was absolutely bladdered (not that I wasn't too far behind!). When it was time for me to go (around 4pm) I went over to the Barclays bloke, who was surrounded by a few hacks and Motson (most of the ex players / managers etc had gone). I offered my thanks and one pissed up hack attempted to focus his eyes on me and said ''nice to see you again''. Really wanted to say ''never met you before you pissed up twat''!!
I looked at Motson and thought ''you cant be commentating tomorrow'' - and I was wrong.... there he was at Anfield, business as usual!
I pretty much staggered to Euston, caught the train and slept off the champagne, beer, red wine and brandy off all the way home.....
Most stupid thing was........ the winning manager and player was not announced for a whole week........... I had presumed they had been announced the moment the voting had taken place and was stunned to hear them being announced a whole week later....... otherwise Fred Done would have paid me a lot of money!!!!!
