Fonseca Appreciated
Grilled's seasonal awards dinner threw up probably the biggest surprise winner of its entire history, with 35 year-old role-playing midfielder
Alex Fonseca taking the prestigious Player of the Season award, ahead of hot favourite and reigning holder
Chow Ying Lee. There seemed little chance that any could unseat Chow, who followed up the title with Grilled's first Golden Boot since Domenik Bögengang's heyday, but the panel of judges swayed the decision by a single vote.
Despite his undoubted achievements, Chow was hardly a clear leader in the online poll portion of the contest, taking just 22% of the clicks, just ahead of longtime darling
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim at 19%, and Fonseca at 17%, apparently due to a forum campaign by a small cabal of dedicated fans. "Likely the general supporter thought that Chow would surely sweep it." club PR officer Desmond Cheung suggested.
Chow hid his surprise well when the results were announced, less so
Alex Fonseca, who was not even seated in the front row, and fumbled to find words on the podium. "Well, I must say I'm shocked." the Portuguese, who made fifteen competitive appearances, only one less than club leaders
Dexter Stacey and
Zhu Changchun, despite being officially only a rotation player. "This is new to me."
Trophy-giver
Niculae Stanca was less inhibited, as he cast Fonseca as criminally underappreciated. "He's always been among the first to arrive at training, has filled in all over the place at a moment's notice without a single word of dissent, scored, been Man of the Match... what more could I ask for from a player? He will be here next season, and mark my words, he will have an important part to play."
There was another first as the Young Player of the Season was not present to receive his token in person, as Mayur Gudivada had left two days ago for France upon his transfer. Instead, a pre-recorded message was screened, in which Gudivada was quite obviously being teleprompted. Not that it mattered to the Chicken Wings boys in attendance, who clapped wildly at its conclusion all the same.
