Best team: Manchester City.
Best team of lawyers: See above.
Favourite number: 115.
Least favourite number: 115.
Premier League Player of the Year: Phil Foden, Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard.
WSL: Khadija Shaw, Lauren James, Lotte Wubben-Moy.
Worthy mentions: Cole Palmer, Ross Barkley, Douglas Luiz, Niamh Charles.
Youngster to watch: Ethan Nwaneri.
Sad farewells: Viv Miedema, Roy Hodgson.
Player performance of the season: Being on the gantry at Kenilworth Road watching Erling Haaland score five goals in City’s 6-2 FA Cup win over Luton.
Best players on the continent: Jude Bellingham, Aitana Bonmati, Vinicius Jnr, Alexia Putellas.
Championship player of the Year: Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (Leicester) Sam Morsy (Ipswich) Kyle Walker-Peters (Southampton).
Division One: Harrison Burrows (Peterborough), Jamie Reid (Stevenage), Nathaniel Mendez-Laing (Derby) and Marlon Pack (Portsmouth).
Division Two: Jodi Jones — Notts County, Davis Keillor-Dunn (Mansfield Town), Elliott Lee (Wrexham).
Manager of the Year: Apart from Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta — 1) Enzo Maresca, 2) Kieran McKenna.
The Todd Boehly annual award for losing a good manager goes to: Chelsea (again).
Match of the season: Where do I start? I’ve been fortunate enough to cover a raft of action-packed matches this season. Spurs 1-4 Chelsea, Chelsea 4-4 City, Luton 3-4, Arsenal, Chelsea 4-3 Man United, not to mention Stevenage 4-3 Tranmere, but I have to say for sheer drama Coventry’s valiant 3-3 FA Cup semi-final effort against United at Wembley topped the lot for explosive action allied with a gripping narrative. If Victor Torp’s VAR disallowed goal had gone in it would have been the greatest FA Cup match of all time. And that’s from someone who went to the 1999 FA Cup semi-final replay between United and Arsenal.
Favourite match: 1) Spurs 2-3 Arsenal, North London Is Red. 2) Borussia Dortmund 4-2 Atletico Madrid, 81,000 passionate fans exhorting their team to a memorable victory for every second of 90 intense, enthralling, crazy minutes, 3) Leicester 1-1 Ipswich. A wonderfully absorbing clash between two teams destined for automatic promotion back to the promised land.
Favourite match as a fan: Being in the away end when Arsenal beat United 1-0 at Old Trafford — then getting the soaking of my life when a month’s worth of rain fell in an hour.
Favourite match as a fan II: Being with my partner and daughters to watch Arsenal Women majestically sweep aside United and Spurs in front of 60,000 crowds.
Worst match of the season: Stevenage 0-0 Bolton on Good Friday. It would’ve taken Lazarus’s comeback to enliven 90 minutes of utter tedium. Looking back it came as no surprise that Boro boss Steve Evans departed for pastures new a few weeks later
Hitchin 0-0 Leamington. The Canaries were relegated after failing to win. Made worse by the fact the referee sent off two Hitchin players for absolutely nothing. Thankfully Hitchin have since been reinstated back to the Southern Premier Central Division (Step 3) after Coalville sadly went into administration.
Most embarrassing moment of the season: Falling, no, absolutely flying into the Stevenage dug outs and nearly breaking my leg while attempting to grab a post-match word with Steve Evans. Who, thankfully, had the decency to offer a hand to lift me up. I don’t know what hurt more, my leg or my wounded pride. In fact, many who witnessed me hurtling into aforesaid dugouts are still chortling over the sight even now…
Most embarrassing moment II: Watching Spurs fans celebrate Manchester City beating Ange Postecoglu’s side.
Worst trip of the season: Any evening match where they close your motorway home. A sad indictment on this government’s appallingly incoherent transport “strategy.”
Favourite trips: MLS All Stars 0-5 Arsenal A week of bacchanalian excess in Washington DC and New York in searing heatwave temperatures while taking in all the US capital had to offer in terms of culture, heritage and architecture — while also scoffing 48oz steaks and watching Declan Rice make his debut. Handy tip: Don’t eat a bag of CBD gummy bears while attending a Washington Commanders’ Major League Baseball match, although to be fair it did make the mascot race deep in the third innings unintendedly hilarious.
Seville 1-2 Arsenal. Four days in glorious Andalusia savouring the sights and exploring a wondrous city full of incredible history and historic buildings under a perfect autumn sun, complete with (mostly) great food and late-night bars.
Dortmund 4-2 Atletico Madrid: 48 hours in freezing cold, utilitarian Dortmund might not seem like much fun but I got to stand on the imperious Yellow Wall and experience the best atmosphere at a club match this side of western Europe, while ticking the mighty Westfahlen off my bucket list, while drinking beer and eating currywurst. The game wasn’t bad either. And all for a match ticket that cost a princely €18. We have an awful lot to learn about how to treat football fans in this country.
North Macedonia 1-1 England. The match was dreadful but three new countries in five days was the real highlight. This included a riotous 48 hours in Tirana before a six-hour drive through rugged mountains past the world heritage beauty of Lake Ohrid, prior to an equally riotous 36 hours without sleep in Skopje. Rounded off by an incredible welcome in Prisitina as we also took in Kosovo 0-1 Belarus, to seal a week to remember.
Porto 1-0 Arsenal. Again, a brilliant trip ruined by the football. Early spring sunshine drinking in evocative stone walled bars on the banks of the River Douro — what’s not to love. Nor the stunningly evocative belle epoque Cafe Majestic with the best Pasteis del Nata around.
Harrogate 5-1 Gillingham: Ticking off my 92nd league ground at a wonderfully hospitable club complete with top scoff including pie ’n’ mash, pork scratchings and local beer — and that was just at half-time. Not to mention the 1,000 tea bags I got to mark joining The 92 Club. Not sure I’ll get such regal treatment when I have to tick Bromley off next season to keep my membership.
Favourite stadium: Goodison Park. Yes, it’s cramped and the sightlines are bad, but English football will be far poorer when Archibald Leitch’s flying buttresses are no more. Goodison has history and heritage seeped into its very brickwork, imbued and bestowed by the unbridled passion of generations upon generations of loyal Evertonians — and no shiny new stadium will ever replicate that. Take it from me, as someone who still misses Highbury.
Favourite stadium II: Barnsley: If you love floodlights, brickwork and a wooden stand, Oakwell is the very place for you.
Worst stadium: Any soulless, bland, identikit new ground that refuses to take cash “for your convenience” while playing “chart music” over the PA so loud it makes your ears bleed in a bid to replicate the atmosphere lost when the club moved from their spiritual home in the name of “progress.”
Least favourite club: Any team that doesn’t have a printed fanzine — or a press box with wi-fi that doesn’t work that also runs out of programmes and teamsheets.
Best pie: Stockport County. A satisfyingly large meat ’n’ potato with a sea of top-notch gravy slathered in vinegar-soaked mushy peas. Glorious.
Worst grub: Pigs trotter for breakfast. As much as I absolutely love tapas and will normally eat anything and everything, the globulous pig’s trotter I ate in Seville the morning after the game was absolutely disgusting — like a plate of tripe. I’m sure it was cooked to perfection but it was utterly hideous to my taste that sunny Andalusian morning, alas.
Hopes for next season: That the 115 charges are finally heard.
Hopes for next season II: That women’s football will continue to grow exponentially — but with the hope that the deservedly increased riches on offer don’t attract the jetsam and flotsam of money-grabbing leeches known as player agents from the men’s game. As someone who has watched and covered women’s football for more than a decade, the fact fans (and journalists) had unrivalled access to the players is something that made the game markedly different from the men’s game. Let’s hope we don’t lose that in the rush for mammon.
Hopes for next season III: That the Gooner Fanzine — the printed labour of love that is rapidly taking over my life as editor — survives.
Hopes for the summer: That Euro 2024 is packed with attacking football.
Hopes for the summer II: The Tories are routed. No, actually let’s have them completely and utterly humiliated to leave them broken forever. That would be nice.
Layth will be at Wembley covering the Champions League final between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund this weekend. Read the Morning Star for his match coverage. He will also be covering select matches at Euro 2024.
