Tuesday, May 16, 2006
And the award goes to...
Well, the scores are tallied and the results are in for the inaugural and unprestigious Aussie TV Hammer of the Year awards. These awards take an average of all the ratings we have given the players over the season based on the TV coverage in Australia. Players must have played more than a third of the televised matches (that is, 9 or more matches over the 25 that were covered) to be eligible.
Astonishingly, we have joint winners for the major award. Marlon Harewood and Nigel Reo-Coker have both achieved an incredible 7.00 average rating for their performances over the year and so will share the award, although Harewood has been rated in more games (24, versus 20 for Reo-Coker). Matty Etherington scoops the runner-up award with an impressive average of 6.91 over 22 matches.
Aussie TV Young Hammer of the Year goes to the supremely talented defender Anton Ferdinand with an average rating of 6.63 over 20 matches - although this rating is hardly indicative of his superbly consistent performance throughout the season. Fear not, the match reporters are being ruthlessly tortured as we speak. (NRC of course was eligible for Aussie TV Young Hammer of the Year, but you can't win both...)
Israeli playmaker Yossi Benayoun picks up the Best Signing award with an average rating of 6.79 in 24 matches, just pipping Roy Carroll who averaged 6.78 over 9 matches.
The Worst Signing goes to Lionel Scaloni with a dismal average of 5.67 in 12 matches.
The Encouragement award (highest average rated player with insufficient matches to qualify for Hammer of the Year) goes to Carl Fletcher, who averaged an excellent 7.14 rating over 7 matches. Eternal Hammers hero Jimmy Walker only played a single match but received an 8 rating for it, although you could hardly call that an average!
Interestingly, official Hammer of the Year Danny Gabbidon only averaged 6.48, demonstrating either the difficulty of rating players based on what you see on TV, or the utter incompetence of our match reporters. (Probably a bit of both.) Frankly I'm surprised Danny G and Anton were so far down the list, but there you have it.
Complete results:
Average, Appearances, Name
7.00, 24, Marlon Harewood (joint Aussie TV Hammer of the Year)
7.00, 20, Nigel Reo-Coker (joint Aussie TV Hammer of the Year)
6.91, 22, Matty Etherington (runner-up Aussie TV Hammer of the Year)
6.79, 24, Yossi Benayoun (Best Signing)
6.78, 9, Roy Carroll
6.72, 25, Paul Konchesky
6.67, 9, James Collins
6.64, 22, Bobby Zamora
6.63, 20, Anton Ferdinand (Aussie TV Young Hammer of the Year)
6.50, 16, Teddy Sheringham
6.48, 24, Danny Gabbidon
6.39, 23, Hayden Mullins
6.31, 16, Shaun Newton
6.25, 12, Christian Dailly
6.25, 12, Dean Ashton
6.20, 15, Shaka Hislop
5.67, 12, Lionel Scaloni (Worst Signing)
*7.14, 7, Carl Fletcher (Encouragement award)
* Ineligible for full award due to insufficient appearances.
whubris said...No, it's a bit dead :-)
Incidentally, there are some aussie fan club details under the "Contacts" menu now. If anyone has further details (especially from other cities) please leave a comment or email me.
