The Football Life’s 2014/15 SPFL Awards



It’s the time of year where we celebrate the very best and worst about Scottish football and give those who provided us with the most quality and LOLZ during the season the treatment they deserve. As the season now drifts into meaninglessness for many, it’s only right to take this spare week to reflect on the entertainment the past few months have given us. Without further ado, then…



The Claude Anelka Award for the Worst Manager





“A Man with the look of inspiration”



We begin with what is, in my estimation, probably the most competitive award going. No award has as many high calibre contenders in a season which has, more than any other, seen some absolutely shocking management.

Amazingly, of the five outstanding candidates for this award, all but one comes from two sides - Rangers and St Mirren.

The odd one out is Martyn Canning of Hamilton. No-one expected Canning to simply continue from where Alex Neil but the drop off in form experienced under Canning has been so dramatic, one would think that the Hamilton of January onwards are a completely different side to that of the first half of the season. A return of (at time of writing) 3 points out of 33 has seen Hamilton go from title challengers all the way out of the top six. They have metamorphosized from one of the best sides in the division to the worst. It is a decline worse even than that experienced by Terry Butcher’s Hibs. That is some achievement and more than enough to win this award in most seasons. Yes, they lost Tony Andreu and mysteriously binned Mickael Antoine-Curier, but that things have unravelled so quickly is seriously worrying for next season.

However, we then meet the St Mirren contingent - Gary Teale and Tommy Craig. Teale’s main sin is having seen the teams around him hit some form while his St Mirren side have become detached. But it would be very unfair to award him this considering the mess left to him by Tommy Craig and considering the board sold the club’s best player from under him on transfer deadline day. Craig, a man devoid of seemingly all personality and motivational skills was the man chosen to pick up where Danny Lennon left off primarily for the reason that he was cheap. Craig turned a solid St Mirren side into the worst side in the league - even the basket case of Ross County eventually showed some life. Craig’s St Mirren showed less life than a dead fish. By the end, his sacking was a mercy killing - for him as much as for the fans.

Then we go to Rangers. Ally McCoist would be a shoo-in for this award were it a lifetime lack of achievement award. After a long apprenticeship under an exceptional mentor in Walter Smith, McCoist has not only consistently shown that nothing was learned from his time shadowing a man with a trophy cabinet the size of a house, he also showed he learned nothing from his own failures. He turned Kris Boyd into a useless striker mere months after he single handedly kept Kilmarnock in the Premiership and that reverse development has been seen throughout the entire side. Worse still was the wage he was pocketing for his mismanagement followed by the peculiar (to say the least) manner of his departure which shredded the confidence of the side. But while McCoist did all this without seeing results slip that much, Kenny McDowell really inflicted the pain on the side. Much like Tommy Craig, he inspired no-one and, although he was working under strained circumstances, his time in charge turned Rangers from title challengers to third place also-rans - something Stuart McCall was able to arrest fairly quickly.

Allan Johnston is also worth a mention but only along the same lines as McCoist - his time at Kilmarnock showed that he could only get results by chance, all the while making the team less interesting and becoming more and more irritable as time went on eventually getting sacked for moaning.

But there could only be one winner. Martin Canning turned a good side bad but there have been few repercussions and Hamilton have time to realise their error and fix things. St Mirren have no such luxury and it is for that reason that the winner of this award can only be Tommy Craig. The Craigime ruled over a period where I was able to amass considerable winnings from just backing them to lose every week. And they complied every week. They were embarrassingly, predictably bad.





The Clydebank Award for Worst Attempt at not getting Relegated

“When I said Love is all Around me, this wasn’t the sort of going down I was expecting”



This is an odd award in that one division provides three of the five nominees in spite of there only being one automatic relegation place in the division.



Cowdenbeath, Alloa and Livingston are all more than worth a mention. Cowdenbeath may well stay in the Championship but any team that ships 10 goals and then sees their manager skip games so he can assistant manage Northern Ireland don’t just have issues, they become a joke. Alloa will likely end in the playoff owing to simply not scoring goals, something that even signing Michael Chopra couldn’t turn round. To be fair, given his breadth, it’s quite hard to imagine Chopra even turning himself round.

Livi are gone and may not even start next season but for a full time team to be bottom and comfortably behind the part time sides is a rarity, even if Morton did manage it last season.

Stirling Albion were never expected to be anywhere other than where they are so it is unfair to give them this - they may have been poor but they were strong favourites for relegation from Day One so to punish them for living down to expectations seems a little silly. St Mirren did have a small mid-season return to form amidst the gloom of this season but their crapness pales into comparison to that of Montrose.

It will create history to be the first team relegated out of the league but Montrose, whose season has varied wildly between apathetic and pathetic are likely to be the ones taking that rather ignoble award. They have a perfectly fine points total but for a side who were aiming for more and who strengthened pre-season, propping up the league system is a dire return.





The Rafael Scheidt Award for Worst Piece of Business

“I’ve got a Brazil cap, you know”



Kris Boyd all the way. Has any player ever followed up such an exceptional season with such a dismal one, especially in light of dropping a division and playing part time sides. As his form went, as did his motivation and performances only got worse to a stage now where he can’t get past Nicky Clark into the first team. It has been a season that has been career endingly bad and, considering the rather large pay packet he gets, there can be no other contender for this. There have been plenty of bad signings such as Yoann Arquin to St Mirren where the player has delivered nothing but one could have expected nothing. Kris Boyd is the only one who could reasonably have been expected to slot away 20+ goals a season and provided next to nothing. Only St Mirren’s sale of Kenny McLean, effectively selling away their Premiership place for just £250k, comes close, alongside their policy of continuing to give Yoann Arquin a career as a footballer.





The 2005 Royal Rumble Award for biggest botch

“Things that happened to Vince we’d like to see happen to Willie Collum”



The penultimate of the bad awards celebrates those moments where a club or player just completely mucks it up and everyone is sat wondering how.

There are, if we’re honest, only two truly outstanding contenders (as worst board comes up next as it’s own separate award and that provides so so many contenders) and both are extraordinary.

First up is the runner up which is a collective nomination for Motherwell’s defending. For half the season, they have been in a competition with themselves to see how to concede the most embarrassing goal. Their spanking from Dundee at Dens Park was one of the most unintentionally hilarious games one could imagine as Well became increasingly creative - short back passes? check. Your new central defender getting sent off within half an hour on his debut? Check. The only one they haven’t yet managed is the “keeper boots the ball off a defender and back over his head and in” and are only denied this award due to the truly historic nature of the winner.

That can only be the farce that was Celtic’s Champions League campaign. To cut Ronny Deila some slack, Celtic are so radically different now compared to the start of the season, it is like watching two completely different sides. However, any side that manages to get knocked out of one competition twice in the space of a month deserves a bit of notoriety. Legia Warsaw demolished Celtic over two legs with Celtic going through because of the most anal of technicalities meaning Legia were ejected into the Europa League. Then, Celtic were paired against a rank average side in Maribor, contrived to lose without ever having really looked threatening or threatened and dropping into the Europa League while Maribor went on to not win a single group game in the CL. Whatever your view on the comparative difficulty of the sides and how different Celtic are now, that is a truly special screw up of a Champions League tilt that even Motherwell couldn’t achieve.





The David Murray Award for Worst Board

“Does that Steward look a bit police-y to you?”



There may be a couple of contenders for this one!

To start with those not called Rangers:

St Mirren are more than worth a mention. Their time since last May goes as follows - Sack Danny Lennon, Appoint Tommy Craig (Worst Manager of the season), lose lots of games, Sack Tommy Craig, Appoint Gary Teale who has no experience, see Teale oversee a return to form and look like heading for safety, sell Kenny McLean who was the club’s best player and only real goal threat, spend actual money on Yoann Arquin who had a scoring record of 1 in 10 at Ross County (which has gotten worse), get relegated. That is breathtakingly bad to the extent where St Mirren’s relegation can be almost solely laid at the board’s door.

Dundee United sold the League Cup away and went from the best run club in the league to one of the worst in the space of two months. A PR nightmare, yes, but not as bad as others.

As for Rangers, who don’t win this award, they have cycled through three board this season - the Easdales on their own, the Ashley regime and, currently, the King’s Court. They have gone through fan rebellion and through their usual level of overspending but…

The reason they don’t win this award is because of Livingston. Neil Rankine has embarked on a season long mission to not divest himself of the club knowing the penalty that it would bring - the potential end of the club. Those stakes are higher than at any other club and the mismanagement to take the club so close to the brink is so much more as to make Livingston the clear winners of this accolade. as, much like the SFA and SPFL, I’d much rather punish the club than sanction the man.





Now for the positive awards of which I can at least say that there are more.

The “That. Is. Sensational.” award for Goal of the Season

“So this is how the SPFL crack Asia then”



Yes, I’m an Ian Crocker guy - deal with it ;)

We’ve been fortunate this season to see many a great goal. A look at the SPFL’s YouTube channel shows plenty in their goal of the month compilations. The best of the best though…

Danny Swanson’s goal vs Celtic is certainly in the reckoning. A Scholes-esque edge of the box screamer left Craig Gordon with no chance at all. Mauro Bilate may not have done much, but his 35 yard screamer back in August certainly left a mark. Stephen Mallan made one of the few positive headlines this season for St Mirren with his jog through the opposition defence to score his first goal for the club. Celtic give a few candidates for team goal of the season but, let’s be honest, this award was only ever going to one man and one goal.

It’s important to judge this by including the context of the goal. Take Lukas Jutkiewicz’s equaliser at the end of the 6-6 draw - a stunning volley made better by the circumstances of it. When you throw that into the equation, it’s hard not to give this award to Alim Ozturk for his absurd 40 yard strike to equalise in the second Edinburgh Derby of the season. A swerving, dipping thunderbastard of a shot that left Mark Oxley with no chance and kept Hearts’ unbeaten record going at the latest possible moment in the biggest possible occasion. You simply can’t beat that.





The “Then, Now, Forever” award for Moment of the Season

“Never Forget”



This is the award where, to be blunt, I’m probably going to annoy people and be controversial. Why, you ask? Because I’m not giving it to Jay Beatty winning SPFL Goal of the Month. Was it a heartwarming moment? Yes. Memorable? Yes.

But here’s the thing. As our society has gone through the 21st Century, the viral and the human interest factors have combined. Hamilton Accies did a nice thing inviting him. The rest of it? Philanthropy and marketing synergised. The SPFL were seen to do a nice thing by promoting him and between the goal of the month and his winning video, over 850,000 have watched on the SPFL’s YouTube channel, in the region of about 210x more than normal and that’s before you take into account individual video makers. The SPFL knew this would happen and, on a personal level, while I wish all the best to Jay and celebrated it with him, moment of the year shouldn’t be going to what was a cynical, if very sweet, marketing ploy. That I take that view is unlikely to be popular but one only has to take a look at, say, the WWE’s treatment of Connor Michalek to see why I take this view - an incredible gesture for the child in question but a cynical one for the company. Philanthropy is now, for most companies, just an extension of corporate branding and that is why I would be uneasy to give this award to Jay.

For that reason also, it’d be inappropriate to attempt to be witty and smart announcing the winner, which is Alloa’s comeback and victory over Rangers in the Petrofac Cup. Not only was it one of the most notable results in club history, but also done in an incredible fashion, coming from 2-0 down to win 3-2 in the last 20 minutes. That would be a pretty incredible result in any circumstance but in a cup match against a much larger, richer and full time side. More than a cupset, this was a moment that every Alloa fan there will remember. That is what matters.





The Robert Duvall award for Manager of the Season

“So Robert said I could teach him to act and he’d teach me to manage”



It takes talent to have a shot at glory but even more so to turn a ship around. Ronny Deila may be taking many trophies home for creating a new Celtic side out of the ashes of an old one, but that isn’t the greatest feat seen this season.

Just one position below, Derek McInnes has done a great job not just to separate Aberdeen from the pack, but to put them on a consistent run that made them, for a time, real threats to Celtic. It didn’t take much in the way of change to do so but to make the Dons so trustworthy is an achievement worth recognition. But is it the best?

If we are to talk about consistency, then we could talk about Hearts. Robbie Neilson had the league wrapped up with 2 months to go in a competitive league, but he was helped by the failures of others as much as his own talent and, when put up against Celtic, weren’t able to compete.

What about replacements? James Fowler took over Queen of the South after Jim McIntyre departed and made a good team better, outwitting Ally McCoist, Alan Stubbs and Stuart McCall - their playoff space now assured, which would have been the limit of their ambitions this year, it is a good achievement considering that Falkirk were fancied to do well. Jim McIntyre has saved a Ross County side that looked dead in the water only through his signings from January. That in itself is a talent, but not enough to win.

But it’s to League Two we look to to find the winner. I may not get taken seriously were I to suggest Gus McPherson but he has taken a Queens Park side who were useless last season to second in the league. But the winner must be Jim Weir of Elgin who took a side that were useless for half a season and has recovered them to a position where they look likely to be in the playoffs, something that was unthinkable 6 months ago. The recovery of Elgin is worth more recognition as it wasn’t long ago they were bottom - it is a redemption as much of the man who left Brechin under a cloud as it is an Elgin side who looked doomed.





The “£650k for Larsson, really?!” award for the best piece of business of the season

“Pictured without Terminator heads”



Note that this is an award for the best piece of business not the best signing. This means that we get to include the best sale as well as both sides of the market matter. If we were talking just best signing, then we’d probably mention names such as Ash Taylor, who overcame a very shaky start at Aberdeen to become an integral part of their defence, or Raffaele de Vita, whose contributions at Ross County has turned not just the odd game around, but the entire season around.

But we’re not talking about the best signing. We’re talking about the best piece of business. And, this season, that has to go to a sale rather than a purchase.

Million pound transfers are a rarity in Scottish football. Outside of Celtic, Rangers and Dundee United, even more so. So Hamilton Accies managing to get £1m for Tony Andreu is a quite incredible piece of business. Forget that Andreu seems to have been all that kept the side so high in the table, forget his immense goal tally and forget the accusations that the largesse of the fee was partly a donation from Alex Neil - £1m for a player who had shown 6 months worth of great form and who hadn’t come anywhere near those heights before is stunning and, more importantly, enough money to make sure a club the size of Accies don’t have to worry about the bills for a while and have enough in the bank to bring in players in the summer to rebuild the side - a luxury few sides in the league have.





The Tony Watt award for European Performance of the Season

“Right, where’s the party at?”



Not Motherwell.

Aside from that, there are only two real candidates - Aberdeen’s victory over Groningen and Celtic’s Draw against Inter Milan.

Aberdeen must be victorious after being able to actually be victorious over a larger side who not many gave them that much hope against. Celtic gave us the match of the season in that first leg against Inter with a frenetic classic that gave quality, mistakes and incident all in abundance.

That is until you count the ladies. Glasgow City reaching further in the Champions League than ever before with dramatic wins over Madyk Kolin and Zurich before meeting a dominant PSG. As much as it’s easy to solely focus on the men’s game, it would be wrong to award this to anyone else than Glasgow City.





The Hope of a Nation award for Young Player of the Season

“Sorry, Alex, you’re too old. You might want to try Forfar though…”



For this award, only players 19 or under on 1st January 2015 qualify and who are permanently at a Scottish club, ruling out Jason Denayer. This limits our contenders quite nicely to the following four:

Ryan Christie of Inverness Caledonian Thistle

Charlie Telfer of Dundee United

Jason Cummings of Hibs

Liam Henderson of Celtic

I could give mention to Development League stars Lawrence Shankland and Eamon Brophy but they haven’t yet done it in the first team. Next season, they may well be in this list.

Henderson is the Celtic prospect who, arguably, has the brightest future at the club. With a consistency, turn of pace and deftness of touch that have set him apart from others at the club such as Calum McGregor. But, whatever he does have, the issue of having it at Celtic is that he doesn’t get to show it all that often. He may once the title is sealed but that will only be a couple of games at this rate.

Telfer, much like Dundee United’s other starlets this season, has been good in spurts. At his best, he is able to loiter in attack and sniff out chances from outside the box allowing him to create and shoot. Generally, though, now pressure has been forced on him by transfers, he is a figure that gets bypassed. Experience is now key for his progression.

Which leaves Christie and Cummings. Both are the more obvious candidates being as they both have earned and cemented their place in their respective line ups. Cummings has overcome the toxicity of Hibs’ relegation to bring in a scoring record of 1 every other game which, for a 19 year old, is an impressive scoring record. His off the field antics are less impressive and it’s yet to be seen whether his McDonald’s based fracas is a lesson learned or indicative of a wider issue with his temperament. However, he has already done more at his age than Tony Watt and, if he can maintain this form through next season, Hibs have a real player on their hands.

Which leaves the victor - Ryan Christie. The best compliment one can perhaps pay Christie is that, at a tender age, he is such an established part of the Caley set up, you forget how young he is. Unlike others, he isn’t asked to make an impact or make cameo appearances - he is, at just over 20, asked to and capable of dictating the attacking tempo of Inverness. To do that for Inverness requires him to be highly technically proficient to be able to do it to the style John Hughes wants to see his sides play and, in return, Hughes has taken care to not overexpose his starlet - balancing Christie’s physical needs with giving him the playing time to enhance his already rapid development. The result is that Christie has won SPFL Young Player of the Month twice this season, on pristine pitches in August and on muddy fields in February, showing his versatility. Contracted to summer 2016, the likelihood is Christie will move this summer - Celtic are linked as have been a number of English clubs but his next step may well be to follow Ryan Gauld to the continent and that has been considered. Christie still has a way to go - impacting more in games where Inverness have to play direct rather than the short passing style of Hughes will make him a more rounded player but there is no doubt that he is the outstanding player for these criteria.

And Finally…

The Football Life Five - The Five Best Players of the Season

“It’s not like the pros always get it right…”



This, of course, is where I’ll get slated on Twitter.

As the season has gone on, fans have set into two camps. Whether you have your own favourites or not, there are two popular candidates for the win. Both are in the top five and one is the winner.

Perhaps an important element of this is to explain also the players not included and the format itself. While there will be a top player, the other four are not sorted into any ranking so just because I mention your favourite first doesn’t mean they’re fifth.

To be honest, it was a surprisingly easy endeavour to pick four of the players because they jump out so easily. The fifth player is one I had to wrack my brains over not because there isn’t another outstanding player but because there are a few close together before deciding that there wouldn’t be two Aberdeen players in the top five.

The Dons players sitting just outside the five would be Jonny Hayes and Adam Rooney. Able to play all down the left flank, Hayes has found another gear this season and, while he only lasted about 20 minutes in that game at Celtic Park, no player has given the Celtic defence as much trouble as Hayes did in the early proceedings of their 4-0 loss as he constantly tormented, found space and beat players - that has been more than a rare occurrence and that he isn’t in the five is due to there being two better wingers in it. As for Adam Rooney, scoring a goal against every club in the league is certainly an achievement and cementing his place in the side after being challenged by David Goodwillie has boosted his confidence - versatile enough to score whatever defence is put in front of him. But, while closest to the five of the striking ranks, there has been no outstanding goal scorer this season as Stevie May and Leigh Griffiths have been in previous seasons and we are going from last season seeing five score 20+ league goals and the season before four doing the same to, likely, none this season. Rooney may be the best, but he’s not exactly in exalted company.

Raffaele de Vita, who has almost single handedly turned Ross County around, would definitely be a contender had he been at the club all season and the same would stand for Tony Andreu. As for Lee Erwin, and Leigh Griffiths, while their peak form has been exceptional, they have only really turned up for half a season if that and more is needed to get into this group.

So if not them, then who?

Well, the pick that took the most thought would be Inverness’ Marley Watkins. He’s possibly quite a left field choice and may not even be in the reckoning for many others but the progress he has shown this season is remarkable. He has gotten himself on the periphery of the Wales squad for his performances on the wing from having only left English non-league football in 2013 - a Wales squad that is packed with talent and impressing in Euro 2016 qualifiers. While he won’t be displacing Gareth Bale any time soon, the clincher for his spot in the five was not on the wing at all. Once Billy McKay departed for Wigan, it was Watkins who was asked to fill in up front and showed he could score and offer a real goal threat. It’s that versatility that gets him to squeak in and may well get him a move this summer - he has flourished in John Hughes’ system, improved in all aspects of his game and is getting the reward that he deserves for it.

The other winger on the list is a much less controversial pick - Greg Stewart of Dundee. Winger is perhaps the wrong term to use to describe Stewart but so would Striker - Stewart is the player offering all the mobility across the forward line and driving from wider areas to drag players out of position creating space for more central, less mobile players to fashion chances - he is a winger in as much sense as Georgios Samaras was: you couldn’t put him up front alone and it be effective, but you have to include him, give him permission to drift wide and inside and ask him to create what he can and score what he can. Given that brief, Stewart is incredibly effective and a player I would wager will top some lists at the end of the season. With 15 goals to date, he has also likely caused as many again as once he has the ball at his feet, he is a threat that has to be covered and one, even better for Dundee, that will likely be going nowhere over the summer. His next aim must now be attempting to get in the Scotland set up as, if Stevie May can, a similarly dangerous player like Stewart must fancy his chances.

Next is Ryan Jack of Aberdeen. At this stage in his career, Jack has now grown to be one of the best midfielders in the SPFL and one who would get in any side, including Celtic. For Aberdeen, he is able to fulfil the role that, if we take Dundee United as an example, you see John Rankin and Paul Paton asked to do together - break up player, direct possession and attack the box late. As a Celtic fan myself, if Scott Brown were to return tomorrow, Jack would be the player I would want to see replace him which I think would nearly say it all - Jack is nothing short of the natural successor to a man who is both Celtic and Scotland captain. He is the base on which Aberdeen have built their title tilt. Given space, he can threaten with the ball at feet and is smart enough to pick the right pass at the right time. He isn’t asked to score loads or create loads, he is asked to be the tempo of the side. In modern football, the metronomic player at the base of the midfield is, I would say, the most important cog in the wheel - there are no better in Scotland than Jack.

This leaves the two which I feel many fans will fall into either camp. One is the winner, one is just in the top five.

The Top Five player is Craig Gordon. His career of having reached the very top and then being afflicted with injury before redemption at Celtic is that of a footballing Job. In terms of a redemption, it would be hard to debate that, Inter aside, Gordon’s form in the Europa League and the first half of the season was that of a keeper at the very top of his form. and that has earned him a much deserved Scotland recall. His form has kept up but has been far less often required as the season went on as Celtic turned from a transitional mess to the vibrant Deila style they play now. Why does he not then win? His error in the Inter game has to play some part - it was a horrible mistake, one he recovered from, but in the scheme of things may have cost Celtic their progression in the Europa League - but more than anything, it is difficult for a goalkeeper to show their form if they are not called upon and it would be difficult to award Gordon the top prize when he has spent long periods not having to do a thing. It’s a technicality, but it’s one that counts.

Which leaves the winner.

It’s sometimes hard to find a comparison for players now - is it wrong to compare the players on the budgets of today to those of 15 years ago on superstar wages? But with this player, it seems only right to lump him into an echelon of players that played for Celtic or Rangers during the peak of their spending. If one were to throw him in with the likes of Petrov, de Boer, Reyna and even Laudrup, he wouldn’t look out of place. Stefan Johansen is just that good.

Johansen under Lennon was asked to play too deep. Johansen under Deila is played by a manager who understands his best position and how to best utilise him. The difference in standard was startling and immediate - a player who had people ahead of him at the start of the season has taken over the side and shown all his qualities. There can be no bigger engine in the league and few in the whole of world football - Johansen is a box to box midfielder in the truest sense: he really does go box to box all the time and never once stops looking as fresh and pressing as hard in the 90th minute as he does in the 1st. His crossing is accurate and deadly, his link up play slick and skilful and his defensive work high and hard. Perhaps the only thing missing from his game is goals even if he is at double figures for the season, he could take the shot slightly more often and would reap the benefit. But that is the most miniscule of complaints. Like his counterparts in the number 25 shirt, Lubo Moravcik and Shunsuke Nakamura, there are few more joyful sights than that of Johansen in full flight - fast, direct, skilful and, crucially, with a mind that seems to sometimes work like a chess master, prepared for a few moves in advance. Were he under another manager, it would be difficult to see him hitting these heights - Deila gets Johansen and Johansen, in return, leaves everything on the pitch. It makes him an incredible combination of the perfect player to manage, the perfect team-mate to have alongside you and the perfect player to watch and admire from the stands. Under Deila, he is far far far too good to be playing in Scotland, under Lennon, he couldn’t get a sniff - that is the one real hope for Celtic fans, Johansen is a player who will stay in Scotland because he will never be afforded the freedom and never be understood by a manager as much as Deila does.

Johansen is simply a joy to watch. That is why he is Player of the Season. And I can’t fathom why anyone would think otherwise.