Alan Mullery (2nd Division Player with Fulham who got to the FA Cup Final, although as Pavlin showed he was also The People's 2nd highest rated midfielder of the 2nd Division and 3rd highest rated player in that division overall) won the FWA award of 1974/75, by apparently getting twice as many votes as 2nd and 3rd players in the vote (Colin Todd and Alan Hudson; the PFA Player of the Year and The People's top rated 1st Division player respectively). The other nominations apart from Todd (again I can't see confirmation of 2nd and 3rd placings when the results are announced) for the PFA award were Colin Bell, Billy Bonds, Ian Callaghan, Hudson and Duncan McKenzie
I don't think Gregoriak (in the thread I linked to in this one) had posted the 1973/74 Golden Boots team, since there was a PFA Team of the Season for that season - I'll put the Golden Boots one here: Jennings (Tottenham); Madeley (Leeds), McFarland (Derby), Hunter (Leeds), Lindsey (Liverpool); Bremner (Leeds), Hughes (Liverpool), Hay (Celtic/Chelsea); Keegan (Liverpool), Channon (Southampton), Hutchison (Coventry) (Todd of Derby was named as sub and Beattie of Ipswich as Young Player of the Season). The PFA shortlist for that season was Norman Hunter (who won), Billy Bremner, Ian Callaghan, Mick Channon, Emlyn Hughes and Paul Madeley When Callaghan won the FWA Player of the Year award, Bremner was 2nd three votes behind - I'm not sure who was 3rd but apparently only Liverpool had three players getting votes (Hughes and Keegan as well as Callaghan)
1972/73 FWA voting results: Pat Jennings 1st, Paul Madeley 2nd (Jennings had more than twice the number of votes he did), Alan Gilzean and Emlyn Hughes joint 3rd.
Moving to 1970/71 and 1971/72, and copy/pasting the Golden Boots (journalist) teams Gregoriak had posted, for reference.... "1970-71 01 Banks (Stoke) 02 Lawler (Liverpool) 03 Cooper (Leeds) 04 Bremner (Leeds) 05 McLintock (Arsenal) 06 Moore (West Ham) 07 Best (Manchester U.) 08 Chivers (Spurs) 09 Davies (Southampton) 10 Lee (Manchester City) 11 Peters (Spurs) 1971-72 01 Banks (Stoke) 02 Madeley (Leeds) 03 Cooper (Leeds) 04 Bremner (Leeds) 05 McFarland (Derby) 06 Moore (West Ham) 07 Best (Manchester U.)* 08 Lee (Manchester City) 09 Chivers (Spurs) 10 Giles (Leeds) 11 Gray (Leeds) * Jimmy Johnstone of Celtic finished ahead of Best but since this is only about Division One (England), the next best-placed player for this position based in England was used, which was George Best" Frank McLintock won the 1970/71 FWA poll, with more than 50% of the votes. 2nd and 3rd were Tommy Smith and Gordon Banks (Martin Chivers was 4th). Gordon Banks won the 1971/72 FWA poll, with 75% of the votes. Johnny Giles was 2nd, and George Eastham was 3rd
Summarising the 1969/70 Golden Boots team too (the World Cup clearly being considered, as well as the Scottish league): Banks (Stoke/England) 22 votes; Hay (Celtic/Scotland) 10 votes, England (Tottenham/Wales) 11 votes, Moore (West Ham/England) 22 votes, Cooper (Leeds/England) 21 votes; Johnstone (Celtic/Scotland) 11 votes, Ball (Everton/England) 19 votes, Bremner (Leeds/Scotland) 19 votes, Best (Manchester United/Northern Ireland) 22 votes; Davies (Southampton/Wales) 13 votes, Hurst (West Ham/England) 14 votes https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/1969-70-british-team-of-the-season.1794502/ There is a report in the Sports Argus on 29th August 1970 that confirms that league managers had a vote on Player of the Year, and Bobby Charlton won that (Bremner 2nd, Ball 3rd, Moore 4th, Best 5th) As for the FWA Player of the Year results though, Bremner was 1st, Banks 2nd and Peter Osgood 3rd. Other players that polled votes (I'm guessing this might mean all of them): Bobby Moore, Johnny Giles, Terry Cooper, Pat Jennings, George Best, Ron Harris, Francis Lee, Tony Book, Jimmy Nicholson.
When Tony Book shared the FWA award of 1968/69 with Dave Mackay (of 2nd Division team Derby), 3rd was Bremner and 4th Greaves. Other players to receive votes were Don Rogers, Geoff Hurst, George Best, Pat Jennings, David Nish and Ron Yeats. I have seen a full breakdown of votes for the top 6 placings (8 players) in the 1961/62 FWA voting: Jimmy Adamson 116, Jimmy McIlroy 103, Johnny Haynes 98, Dave Mackay 82, John White 26, Stanley Matthews, Jimmy Greaves and Ron Flowers 11 each.
In 1957/58, 25 players received votes for FWA Player of the Year, and following the winner Danny Blanchflower, the next on the list (in order) were Bobby Charlton in 2nd, Harry Gregg in 3rd, Johnny Haynes, Ernie Taylor and Billy Wright. The top 6 in the voting for 1958/59 (with numbers of votes shown) were Syd Owen 137, Billy Wright 134, Bobby Charlton 34, Johnny Haynes 22, Brian Clough 13, Billy Liddell 12
I can't tell if they've put the ones from the 1982-83 season's "Shoot" magazine. In England: 1.- Dalglish 2.- Rush 3.- Robson 4.- Whiteside 5.- Mabbutt 6.- Sammy Lee In Scotland: 1.- Charlie Nicholas 2.- Strachan 3.- Eric Black 4.- Willie Miller 5.- McGhee 6.- Sturrock
So here (adding also the top 3 for 1954/55 of Revie/Bartram/Matthews - Billy Wright was 4th just like the Englandfootballonline website showed) is the spreadsheet for the earlier years:
No, I don't think those had been posted before. I suppose they weren't based on ratings, since only Match did those out of the football magazines back in that season, but maybe you know if they were based on consensus among the staff or on readers votes? Thanks anyway - nice contribution. I don't know whether @Paul W might have had the copy of the magazine with that inside (or he may have been reading Match more at that time anyway) - it's possible I guess that I did myself, but unlikely (maybe I read my first copy of Shoot somewhere around that time though IIRC).
I thought it was worth mentioning that I'm thinking the reason Terry Butcher wasn't on the mid-season list, despite having the top average in the end, was probably due to being injured for quite a few games in early-ish 1985/86 (I haven't verified this by checking the specific games he missed though) and playing more in the second half of the season. Actually, he probably didn't have enough games to appear on Match's end of season listing anyway (that doesn't mean he'd have the top average with Match too - we could possibly work out what it actually was though). I've not seen any mention of numbers of games required to be on The People's end of season list (or whether it's a percentage rather than a set number of games even), but it seems like maybe 25 (or certainly about 27) tended to be enough, given Butcher is there for 1985/86 (and for 1983/84 with The People Steve Williams was there with just enough too, and Glenn Hoddle was mentioned but not listed, with presumably not quite enough - I think he didn't get Match's Matchman of the Season award due to the minimum games requirement too of course). Match's minimum games requirement varies a bit, sometimes being 20 even in their early seasons (or just after the switch from doing averages based on all competitions to doing them based on league games only), The People had Shearer appearing on the 1992/93 end of season listing/report with not much more than 20, but more often than not it seems to be 30 games needed with Match and with The People like I say late-ish 20s maybe.... I'm wondering whether Beardsley in 1990/91 didn't meet The People's minimum games requirement (which would have to have gone up if so), or he just had much lower ratings with The People compared to with Match (where he was very close to enough games to qualify for Matchman of the Season, and he would have got it based on his average). I guess anyway that The People could potentially have deemed that Bergkamp played enough in 1997/98, but Gillespie didn't, for example, but I think by then there doesn't seem to be any summary about the ratings and they just seem to be incorporated into a Fantasy Football game (with ratings still given game by game though). Zola possibly would have had enough to qualify in 1996/97 likewise I guess (if the pre-Fantasy Football days merit mark listings based on average ratings had carried on).
Looking back at Paul's post with the 1985/86 Match final ratings in, I see that the minimum amount of rated games required for a mention in that particular season was 28. Butcher played 27 league games according to Wikipedia. So, yeah, his average rating with Match is not known at this point I think, but due to the different criteria he was eligible as The People's top rated player and in the XI of The People too of course, but re: Match at most he would get a mention, without being put in the XI, if he did have the highest average rating (but like I say I don't know how close he would have been to that in terms of the ratings, although he was very close to playing enough games to get on the summary).
Not Zola sorry (he had less than 25 Premier League games that season, after signing during it from Parma). But yeah, Bergkamp in 96/97, as well as 97/98 (and 98/99 for that matter) would probably have had enough to qualify for consideration re: the listed top players with The People, in theory (though maybe not quite with Match) - having at least 27, even though under 30, in those seasons.
The Daily Mirror rated players with marks out of 10 too (also the 2nd tier I see) but unlike with The People there doesn't seem to be a summary about average ratings. I did see in that publication some perhaps interesting pre-season odds (from Ladbrokes) for the 1994/95 season this morning so I'll post those, as well as a TV listing from Sky Sports because there is a programme about IPC Football Awards (but I'm not 100% sure it's not in effect revealing results of Football Writers Player of the Year although I would guess it's something different anyway - I can't find anything about it on the internet and don't think I heard about such awards anyway though....)
It seems like the Daily Mirror's marks out of 10 don't go as far back as The People's anyway. And up to a certain point in time maybe the match reports for Saturday games would be more likely to have been in the Sunday Mirror - I saw this page from February 1980 where there aren't marks out of 10 but there are Man of the Match designations (for example it was Martin Peters for Norwich vs Liverpool, although Liverpool won 5-3, and Arnold Muhren for Ipswich in a 4-0 win at Everton on this day): Results for 'peters muhren hoddle gates liverpool' | Between 1st Feb 1980 and 29th Feb 1980 | Sunday Mirror | Publication | British Newspaper Archive This is an example of the Daily Mirror summarising grades out of 10 after a weekend in October 1995 anyway: But unfortunately without average ratings it would take finding all the grades and calculating averages (if that was even possible for any complete seasons based on what is available), to end up with any average ratings from the Mirror.
The 'Golden Boots' British XI for 1959/60 (the first season it was voted on it seems) was as follows: Jack Kelsey; Don Howe, John Charles, Eric Caldow; Danny Blanchflower, Dave Mackay; Graham Leggat, Jimmy McIlroy, Tom Finney, Denis Law, Bobby Charlton It seems the idea was to pick an ideal XI of the time, rather than just a representative XI of the season (hence Charles in at centre back, despite playing as a striker in Italy at the time).
I think maybe that was a one-off at the time though, and that the idea started off again in 1970 with the 'first Rothmans Golden Boots awards' like Gregoriak showed - when I see the text in the Nottingham Evening Post read "A panel of leading soccer journalists were asked to select the ideal team from current players in Britain with the intention that the side would play a 4-2-4 formation. Three players - Gordon Banks, Bobby Moore and George Best - were the unamimous choice of all 22 panel members". I guess both for 1959/60 (the results being reported in May) and 1969/70 and following few seasons, the selections were loosely based on form during the season concerned. Back in 1960 it was definitely a case of trying to put together a British XI though, to illustrate how that might be if all the British nations played as one team.
I noticed the Newcastle Journal was keeping track of their own merit marks (average ratings) for the clubs in the North East region. He is their summary from near the end of 1968/69 (I can't see the final one though, but thought this would be kind of interesting enough to post here anyway, even though it's only regional). N stands for Newcastle, S for Sunderland and M for Middlesbrough....
In the final moments of my subscription I've got a couple more player ratings pages for particular games to post: Newcastle vs Man City (title-deciding game from 1967/68) (longer highlights also on that channel) Tottenham vs Man Utd (also 1967/68 - see from 43:17 on video below) Hopefully it's visible enough - I wanted to show the complimentary comments about the goals and in some ways the performances of Best and Charlton, which only resulted in the 7 out of 10 grades interestingly in that game
I don't think it was big enough and it doesn't enlarge I see (that seems random whether it does or not to me?). So here are the ratings on their own....
End of season 1981/82 (I used a free view on newspapers.com, but I might have found it by using different search words, so it might have also been on the britishnewspaperarchive site potentially - I tried 'top men' instead of 'merit marks') It's a bit harder to read, but Hoddle (7.55), Ardiles (7.42), Brazil (7.35) is the top 3 I think (there is an article stating Hoddle was the Player of the Year anyway too). Interestingly, Souness who won the Match Player of the Year (with good ratings towards the end) could slip out of the People XI, due to Devonshire's increased average rating (Souness's own did go up with The People too though since the April update). Potentially Ardiles into the number 6, and Devonshire into number 11 would seem the adjustments on the update table. I'd have to double check Thomas would still be the highest rated feasible right back (as before Sansom, the other highest rated full-back along with Statham, would miss out due to being a left back I suppose).
This would now be the updated 1980s People average ratings list then, if I'm reading the end of season 1981/82 page correctly: Glenn Hoddle (1981/82) 7.55 Ray Wilkins (1983/84) 7.55 Terry Butcher (1985/86) 7.53 Kenny Dalglish (1984/85) 7.50 John Barnes (1987/88) 7.50 Steve Nicol (1988/89) 7.50 Kenny Dalglish (1982/83) 7.47 Osvaldo Ardiles (1979/80) 7.45 Osvaldo Ardiles (1981/82) 7.42 (* Glenn Hoddle (1983/84) would also slot in here with 7.41 as shown before, but has insufficient games to qualify - 3 less than Butcher has in 1985/86 which seems to be about the cut-off point) Alan Brazil (1981/82) 7.35 Luther Blissett (1982/83) 7.33 Chris Waddle (1988/89) 7.33 Alan Devonshire (1981/82) 7.30 Paul Parker (1988/89) 7.30 Trevor Francis (1981/82) 7.29 Kevin Keegan (1981/82) 7.29 Bryan Robson (1982/83) 7.28 Peter Reid (1983/84) 7.28 Gordon Strachan (1984/85) 7.28 Trevor Steven (1986/87) 7.28 Peter Beardsley (1987/88) 7.28 Joe Corrigan (1979/80) 7.27 Peter Beardsley (1985/86) 7.27 Glenn Hoddle (1985/86) 7.26 Dennis Mortimer (1979/80) 7.25 Graeme Souness (1981/82) 7.25 Steve McMahon (1987/88) 7.25 Peter Beardsley (1988/89) 7.25