Another Gold Star for the Teacher’s Pets
Let the Great Circle of Back-Patting Commence
So, the smoke has cleared from the great and hallowed halls of… a rented-out venue in London, probably, and the results of the Football Supporters’ Association Awards are in. For 2025. Yes, you read that right. While the rest of us are still trying to figure out how to pay our heating bills for this winter, the titans of football journalism have apparently traveled through a wormhole to congratulate themselves for work they haven’t even done yet. It’s a bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for ’em. And who are the victors, you ask, breathless with anticipation? Why, it’s none other than The Guardian and Miguel Delaney of The Independent, alongside some YouTuber named Adam Clery. Shocking. Groundbreaking. Absolutely no one could have seen this coming, except for anyone who has paid even a fleeting moment of attention to the media landscape for the past decade.
It’s a beautiful little ecosystem they’ve built for themselves, isn’t it? A perfectly sealed terrarium of mutual admiration. The FSA, an organization ostensibly for the fans (you know, the poor saps actually paying to stand in the rain on a Tuesday night in Stoke), gives its shiniest accolades to the very institutions that represent the London-centric media establishment. The Guardian’s Football Weekly and its female-focused counterpart won podcasting awards. Of course they did. It’s the podcast you’re ‘supposed’ to listen to if you want to be considered an intelligent fan, the audio equivalent of leaving a copy of The New Yorker on your coffee table. It’s safe. It’s respectable. It’s also dreadfully predictable.
This isn’t a celebration of excellence; it’s a confirmation of status. It’s the popular kids’ table handing out superlatives to each other while the rest of the school wonders why they’re even there. “Best Hair,” “Most Likely to Succeed,” “Best Podcast by an Oxbridge Graduate Who Thinks Accrington Stanley Is a Quaint Little Joke.” It’s all the same thing.
A Tale of Two Miguels and a Time Machine
But the real story, the one that tells you everything you need to know about this whole charade, is the confusion of the Miguels. The search results, in their infinite, chaotic wisdom, mash it all together. Miguel Delaney, The Independent’s Chief Football Writer, a man who has surely forgotten more about tactical formations than I will ever know, wins a top prize. And in the same breath, we are introduced to Miguel Brooking, a musician who “exhumes entire chapters of his life” in his songs. One Miguel is celebrated for analyzing the sterile tactics of a 4-4-2, the other is baring his soul about a relationship on a new single called “She’s My Company.” Frankly, I’m not entirely sure who won. Are we sure the FSA didn’t accidentally give the award to the indie singer? It would have been far more interesting.
Maybe Brooking’s song is the real winner here. A tortured ballad about obsessive companionship. Is “She” his company, or is “The Guardian” Delaney’s company? Is it a metaphor for the incestuous, closed-loop relationship between these writers and their awards? A self-sustaining bubble where the only opinions that matter are the ones that echo your own. They are their own company. They don’t need us, the readers or the fans. They just need the validation of their peers to keep the whole merry-go-round spinning. It’s perfect. It’s poetry.
And let’s not just skim past the FSA Awards 2025 thing. This isn’t a typo. This is a Freudian slip of magnificent proportions. They are so far ahead of the game, so convinced of their own enduring relevance, that they’re already carving the trophies for next year. It’s the ultimate expression of journalistic hubris. They’re not reporting the future; they’re pre-ordaining it. The winner of the 2026 award will probably be a hologram of Jonathan Wilson, and we’ll all be expected to applaud politely from our nutrient paste dispensaries.
The Influencer Gambit: A Desperate Plea for Relevance?
Enter Adam Clery. God Help Us All.
And then there’s Adam Clery. The YouTuber. The token nod to the digital age. Giving an award to a man from “The Adam Clery Football Channel” is the establishment’s way of saying, “See? We get it. We’re down with the kids.” It’s like your dad trying to use TikTok. It’s painful, it’s awkward, and it reeks of desperation. For years, the old guard of print media has looked down its nose at the digital upstarts, the bloggers, the YouTubers, the podcasters operating out of their bedrooms. They dismissed them as amateurs, as noise. But the noise got louder. The audience migrated. And now, the establishment has no choice but to absorb them, to bring them into the fold and legitimize them with a shiny piece of metal. It’s a calculated move. It’s not about celebrating new media; it’s about co-opting it before it completely renders you irrelevant.
By placing Adam Clery on the same pedestal as Miguel Delaney, they’re trying to create a unified front. “We’re all on the same team,” they seem to be saying. But they’re not. One represents a dying empire of broadsheets and ink-stained fingers, a world of carefully cultivated sources and gatekept information. The other represents a democratized, chaotic, and often-unfiltered new world where anyone with a webcam and an opinion can build an audience. Putting them side-by-side at an awards show doesn’t unite them; it just highlights the chasm between them. It’s a shotgun wedding, and we’re all forced to watch.
So, Who Are the Football Supporters’ Association Supporting?
This is the real kicker. The name on the tin is the “Football Supporters’ Association.” Supporters. The people this is all supposedly for. But what does this award do for a single supporter? Does it make their ticket cheaper? Does it improve the view from their seat? Does it stop a billionaire from moving their club to another city? Of course not. It’s an industry party, funded by industry sponsors, to celebrate the industry itself. The “supporters” part is just branding. It’s a cynical marketing ploy to give the whole affair a veneer of grassroots authenticity.
The truth is, the world of high-level football journalism is as far removed from the life of an actual fan as a Premier League footballer is. They fly to games, they get press access, they speak to managers and players in carefully controlled environments. They analyze the game from a detached, intellectual viewpoint (which is their job, to be fair), but the raw, tribal, often irrational passion of being a fan is something they observe, not something they live. So for them to be awarded by a “Supporters’ Association” feels like a particularly cruel joke. It’s like a Michelin-star chef winning an award from a society of people who survive on instant noodles. The disconnect is staggering.
The whole spectacle is a distraction. A beautifully choreographed piece of theatre designed to make us think that what they do is not only important but *celebrated* by the very people they write for. But we’re not celebrating. We’re just looking for the team news on a Saturday morning. We’re arguing with our mates in the pub. We’re living and breathing the sport in a way that can’t be quantified or judged by a panel. These awards aren’t for us. They never were. They’re for them. It’s their company. And as we’ve learned from the other Miguel, they seem pretty content with that.
