Football bloggers pick the best websites of 2009
During the 2009 Soccerlens Awards, we asked the nominees who they thought deserved to win the awards in their categories. The nominees weren’t limited to the shortlist, nor were they limited to their own categories.
Let’s take a look at who they picked:
Joshua Burt, The Spoiler
Best Football Babes Site
Much as it adds a swell of pride at a job well done to be nominated here, let us not forget the real heroes in this equation. The WAGs themselves.
Were it not for the ironed hair, the lotions, the strong hands from years of shopping, and the hour upon day upon week upon month upon YEAR of carrying out the same brutal morning make-up regime, sites like ours listed would barely even exist. They are the real winners (although, seriously, we’re all winners too).
Best Gossip Site
It would be near impossible to separate the nominees in this section, as they all bring a good dose of humour, insight and up-to-date news on the goings-on in around football clubs – from transfer rumours, to who looks like a doofus when they’re out clubbing, to which manager should be twitching like a rabbit’s nose amidst rumours of it all going rather bosoms up at his club.
All wonderful, witty sites. Except for the BBC, which is just useful. Not funny.
Martin Crawford, Football Fan Cast
Best Football Babes Site
My own view is the ‘Spoiler’ is the best in the field for the simple reason that they are the real pioneers of wag collating and they have a supreme gallery of women that beats us all. They say La Liga and Serie A football is better than England and the WAGs over there are no different.
What I have always liked about the ‘Spoiler’ is they don’t take themselves too serious and they have the right blend of humour and football. It’s this type of philosophy that is the basis for the wag articles that we do.
DT, Soccer Clips
Best Videos Site
No one beats YouTube … ever.
Andrew Weber, Arsenal FC Blog
Best Writer – Sid Lowe (The Guardian)
Best Podcast – Football Weekly (The Guardian)
Best Community – Kickette
Best News Site – Soccernet
Best Team Site – Arseblog
Best Team Writer – Tony Attwood (Untold Arsenal)
The Expert – Kickette
Funniest Site – Studs Up
Best Videos Site – 101 Great Goals
Lenny McDonough, Soccer Updated
Best Videos Site
My pick is 101Greatgoals.com. The football videos are well organised and always timely updated. Soccerupdated.com is only a distant second…
Brooks Peck, Dirty Tackle
Funniest Site: Fisted Away — So consistently fantastic that it’s almost as scary as the Google image results for the first part of their name.
Best Gossip site: I’m gonna go Kickette here — no transfer rumors or any of that junk, just true gossip the way the internet gods intended.
Christopher Harris, EPL Talk
Best Football Podcast: I tried really hard to pick one winner, but I couldn’t choose between two incredible podcasts. I’m not even remotely a fan of either club, but my two favorite football podcasts are, by far, The Spurs Show and MP Red.
The Spurs Show is instantly contagious from the first few seconds of Phil Cornwell imitating Harry Redknapp all the way through to co-host Mike Leigh romancing about a particular Tottenham match from the early 80s.
The other podcast I love is MP Red, which is far better than most radio programmes the BBC produces. If you don’t believe me, listen to their two part interview with Ajax and Liverpool legend Jan Molby. Intelligent, witty and informative, MP Red is a must-listen whether you a Liverpool supporter or not.
Best Competition Site: Bruce McGuire deserves a medal for the exhaustive list of links he provides US soccer fans on a daily basis on his blog, du Nord. It’s often the first stop by soccer fans in the United States whether they’re league officials, fans, players or fellow bloggers. When he took some time off after getting burned out recently, I quickly understood how much of an integral piece of fabric his site is in the soccer landscape in the United States. Thank goodness du Nord is back.
Matt Clements, Stick Football
Thanks for once again nominating us. We feel quite privileged to be alongside such big sites as Hat Trick and the official Premier League website.
My pick for the best Online Football Game would have to be Hattrick. It has been an online football institution for over 10 years and has really just gone from strength to strength. Not to mention, it has a real community behind it which has made it what it is today.
Matt Ladson, This is Anfield
Best Team Site
I would personally vote for Arsenal Mania. The layout of the website is excellent and I believe the content system is built by the webmaster Jonathan himself. Kudos to him for that.
Lee Smith, Footy Tube
Best Football Videos Site
As for best in our category, hands-down it’s 101greatgoals of course.
Tom Dunmore, Pitch Invasion
Best Football Writer
My choice for Best Writer was not nominated, but I think the Guardian’s David Conn has been the most important voice in football writing this past year. He has been writing about the financial mismanagement of the English game diligently for many years, but it is only now many others are realising he was onto something a lot of other people should have been writing about, but weren’t. His dedication to serious research and uncovering the financial misdoings from the top to the bottom of the English game is an example to us all who want football to be the beautiful game.
Adam Bader, Real Madrid Talk
Best Team Writer
I voted for Arseblogger because he has been amazingly consistent since he created Arseblog. In terms of football analysis, he is not afraid to say what he thinks even If he knows he will be bashed out by his daily thousands of readers … and oh yeah het gets football and his stuff is always without the fluff.
Best Football Podcast
As for our favourite on the list, we’d have to go for Football Weekly. James Richardson is the finest football broadcaster of the generation in our opinion.
Christopher Nee, Two Footed Tackle
Best Football Podcast
As a co-host of the twofootedtackle Podcast, I’m really proud to have been nominated in this category alongside four excellent, high-profile podcasts. To my mind, Football Weekly sets the bar impossibly high and it’s an honour to even be on the same shortlist. But I’m a real admirer of the Football Ramble, and I think for combined originality and expertise it’s difficult to beat. The boys are funny and informative, and the show unfailingly entertaining. Hooooo!
Trevor Bolliger – Soccer Pro
Best Online Football Store
I didn’t want to answer on behalf of the entire site, so I asked around. General consensus:
We really like how Soccernetstore.com lays out their site. Not soccer-centric, but we’re also big fans of the oldnavy.com and moosejaw.com online shopping experience.
Djordje Djokic – FreeBetting.net
Best writer: Phil McNulty
Best podcast: EPL weekly
Best community: Footbo
Best news site: Newsnow
Best team site: Republic of Mancunia
Best competition site: Football.fr
Best team writer: Scott from ROM
Best expert: Ian King
Best gossip: Off the post
The funniest: Studs up
Best game: Hattrick
Best babes: The offside WAG’s
Best store: Soccer Pro
Stats site: Soccer Stats
Best videos: 101 great goals
Ives Galarcep, Soccer by Ives
As for writers I respect, I’ll say that Martin Samuel of the Daily Mirror and Henry Winter of the Telegraph are two writers who I consider among the best, if not the best in the business. Their ability to convey strong and intelligent opinions about the game makes for some of the most refreshing and engaging reading in the sport.
Martin Samuel writes about a variety of sports, but his work in soccer is first class and he makes some of the strongest and best arguments in the game.
Best Football Community
ONTD Football – these zany, Sergio-Ramos obsessed chicas are a lively group of well-read footy fans who just happen to have an unhealthy appreciation for glitter and scary flashing gifs. They know their audience and the community aspect reflects that.
The winners of the 2009 Soccerlens Awards will be announced on Monday 1st February 2010.
Topics: 2009 Soccerlens Awards
