A mainstay of Cheat fanzine during its 7 year existence was the Alan Harper Award where points were awarded for bookings, sending offs, penalties conceded and missed, and own goals. It was named after Alan Harper, not because he was crap ( although he was), but because on one unforgettable afternoon at Stamford Bridge in the 1980’s he scored an own goal, conceded a penalty and received a yellow card, amassing a wonderful 6 points in one game, a feat some players struggle to achieve in a whole season. Ever since I hung up my editorial pen, WOTMT have been asking me to resurrect the award in these pages.

I eventually got round to doing it this season, only for The Aardvark to beat me to it in the pages of Spitting Feathers. Bugger! What to do? Forget about it making an appearance for WOTMT? Write to SF explaining the situation and ask them not to run it? Nope, why should they, I haven’t got copyright to it ,if truth be told I nicked the idea from other club’s fanzines ( including Flashing Blade who called it The Disciplinarian and only awarded points for bookings and sending offs, if my memory serves me correct). Anyhow, SF are following different rules, they are awarding five points for an own goal  that was the case for the first 2 seasons of the Alan Harper Award before it was amended down to three), they are also awarding maverick bonus points ( anarchy!). They also seemed to have missed a couple of bookings, so let’s run the tables in both ‘zines. Also sacrilege of all sacrileges, they’ve also renamed it the Gordon Watson Award. Now Gordon Watson wasn’t the greatest player to pull on the blue and white, but I can hardly remember a yellow card to his name. The Alan Harper Award it was and the Alan Harper Award it stays.

Before we get down to this season’s table, a quick history lesson is in order. The inaugural award was won by Nigel Pearson, who followed up his success by retaining the award the next season. His feat was emulated by Carlton Palmer who went on to win the next two. Kevin Pressman was the next to win it, quite impressive for a keeper, before, in Cheat’s final full season, Julian Watts took the award, a remarkable achievement given that he was by no means a first team regular and had departed for Leicester before the end of the season. He also ended the tradition of the award always being won by a player whose surname begins with P.

So, on to this season, and it’s a flying start for Simon Donnelly. He took an early lead with the only yellow card in our opening fixture, followed it up needlessly by conceding the last minute penalty against Bradford, and then consolidated his lead with a booking in the home defeat against Everton. Hot on his heels are Sibon, DeBilde and Emerson. If our Dutch forward can up his form and command a regular place, he could be a real contender for the first import to win this coveted prize as his 3 points so far have come from just 2 full and 6 sub appearances which is pretty impressive. Our Belgian “animal” is not yet showing any signs of his alleged previous antics, although 3 points so far is not bad going for a forward. One surprising feature of our side is how few points our centre halves pick up, if it wasn’t for the dubious penalty awarded against Emo at St James’ Park then our pair would have a single point between them. Talking of the Newcastle fiasco, although, along with Bradford it is the game to yield the most Alan Harper points, the fact that only Alexandersson got booked (and that for dissent) worries me. Now this is not a sensible or adult argument but I want a team that cares enough to kick a few people up in the air when being humiliated. Even more surprising is the fact that in this season of the own goal, despite having conceded more goals than anyone else we have yet to register one.

(up to and including Wimbledon at home)