Author Archives: Simon Collings

Kante collects FWA Footballer of the Year award

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Football Writers Association Player of the Year

N’Golo Kante collected his Footballer of the Year award in the same classy and unfussy manner he displays on the pitch, on a memorable FWA night at the Landmark Hotel, London on May 18.

The Chelsea midfielder won the FWA vote as the season’s outstanding player, beating his team-mate Eden Hazard into second place, while Tottenham’s Dele Alli was third.

Kante was humility personified as he made a gracious acceptance speech praising his team-mates for the rapid rise he has made from lower division French football to winning the Premier League twice in succession.

The former Leicester City midfielder said: “It is special because I couldn’t even say I am the best player, but it’s a great honour. It is not only me. I owe so much to my team-mates because we have achieved so much together this season and we still have the FA Cup final.

“A few years ago I was playing in the French lower divisions. Five years ago I wasn’t even professional, so to receive this kind of award means I am the kind of player I cannot even imagine being here.”

Former Footballer of the Year Pat Jennings was one of the speakers and said that he would love to see Kante at Spurs. “Two Premier League titles, one with Leicester last year, and one with Chelsea this year.  You don’t fancy Tottenham next year do you?” joked the gentle giant.

Graeme Souness admitted he would not have liked to have been playing in the same era as Kante, because the Frenchman was so good.

And Chelsea’s technical director Michael Emenalo joked that he sent flowers to Leicester City after capturing the influential midfielder. “It is ridiculous to think that N’Golo Kante can improve, given the fact that he has improved two fantastic clubs and helped them win titles in the last couple of seasons,” said Emenalo.

“I want to express the great pride that I and the football club have to be able to say that this wonderful player, this wonderful person, is a part of our organisation.”

Patrick Barclay, the FWA’s Chairman, drew comparisons with the great Sir Stanley Matthews, the first winner of the award, as the Association celebrates its 70th anniversary.

“Sir Stan was perhaps the most magnetic of English footballers. People of all club allegiances used to follow Stanley Matthews, and now people of all allegiances gravitate towards you, they admire the way you play the game,” he told Kante.

“That somehow links together these two very different footballers 70 years apart. You bring together the English football community in admiration of the way you play the game. No fan in the country will begrudge you this award.”

BOB CASS RIP

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THE FWA is sad to report that one of our most revered members Bob Cass has passed away.

Bob finally succumbed after a long fight against cancer on Thursday November 24th, surrounded by his family.

Bob was a former chairman of the FWA, a life-member and one of the finest journalists in its history, primarily with the Sun and the Mail on Sunday.

. Bob Cass

Here is a tribute from his good friend and fellow FWA stalwart Jim Mossop:

To know Robert Stanley Cass was one of life’s privileges.

He was a champion; a true friend of the human race. As a gatherer of football news stories he was unsurpassed. His contacts were from every corner of the football world.  He was a journalist you could trust with your life and people knew that as soon as they met him. The trust was unspoken.

If you saw the words “Exclusive…by Bob Cass” you knew instantly there was true substance in what you were reading. Football folk loved him. He had humour, compassion and knowledge.

You could be playing golf with him in La Manga, Spain, where we had many a happy trip and his mobile would ring. When we told him to switch it off he would tell you that it was Fergie, Harry Redknapp, Sam Allardyce or any one of the old game’s luminaries.

They loved him because they trusted him implicitly and such relationships  were forged long before Google and protective Press Officers got their grip on the game. Bob was ‘old school’ and it worked.

Times spent in his company were magical. He had an amazing memory for jokes and songs. After one convivial night at the Carton House Golf Resort where everyone had a song and a young Scottish journalist played the spoons, Bob was still full of the fun of it on the first tee the following morning and gave us a full solo renditions of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” at 8am.

Bob was a product of Darlington Grammar School. He joined the local paper, the Northern Echo, which was owned by Westminster Press in London. That’s where I first met him at one of Westminster Press’s twice yearly weekend schools. He was riotous fun then but he was sharpening the skills that made him such an outstanding contributor to The Sun and then Mail on Sunday.

He also an immensely proud family man and loved to have his lovely wife, Janet, and their three children Alison, Jennifer and Simon, around him at Christmas and holiday times. He was proud of their achievements.They were with him when he died at his home in Durham, ravaged by the cancer that he had fought so hard to try to defeat.

There was no edge to Bob. I recall inviting him to my house when he was in the Altrincham area and we were having barbecued salmon with a mango salsa. The salsa intrigued him at first and then he said, as only Bob could: “Do you know, my grandad wouldn’t go to work without his mango salsa.”

When he wasn’t working, which was rare, he loved to play golf at Durham City Golf Club where he was captain a few years ago. He was a determined golfer with intense levels of concentration. Then, at the 19th hole, he was the embodiment of relaxation.

All the time, his mind would be ticking over with thoughts of future stories,  He had a couple of spats with Sir Alex Ferguson but they were soon resolved. They had a mutual respect for each other.

We will miss him, hacks and football people alike. It may sound trite to say there will ever be another Bob Cass. It’s not. Bob’s name will always stand revered inside and outside of the beautiful game.”