Writing Competition Winners
The winner of the 1st Soccerlens Writing Competition has been decided.
You can read all 40 entries here - I’d like at least half of the submitters to guest blog again on Soccerlens (I’ll be contacting writers personally over the weekend). If you’d like to write for Soccerlens again / find out about setting up a football blog of your own, tell me here.
Here’s a recap of the prizes and the judges:
Prizes:
For the winner:
- $100 cash.
- Free footy shirt courtesy of our sponsors Subside Sports.
- Contract offer to write on Soccerlens.
For #1 - #3 (or more):
The option of getting financial assistance in starting / promoting their own blogs as part of the network of blogs we’re running.
Judges:
- Ed Harrison - Newcastle United blog
- Marco Pantanella - mCalcio blog
- Nic - FC Barcelona blog
- Red Ranter - Manchester United blog
- V - Kickette
- Ahmed Bilal - Soccerlens
Each judge picked 5 top entries (a total of 30 votes) - the articles were judged on quality of writing, analysis (and depth of knowledge), humour and entertainment value. I’ve tallied the votes and listed all of them at below.
Votes and Winners
Two entries were tied for 3rd place, so both will be invited to set up a blog with the FM network.
- A Naan and a Leg - Gerry McDonnell - 5
- The Heart of Football - Kris Gonzalez - 4
- The Hidden Diaries of Ashley Cole - Saad Hanif - 3
A Goal or Not a Goal: Official Assisted Technology Systems - Wesley Rasdorf - 3
The Rest:
- How a Moustache Might Save Football - Adam Mourad - 2
- Where are my Cheerleaders? - Shane Coghlan - 2
- Can Money Buy You Happiness in the Premier League - James Massoud - 2
- “Saving” American Soccer vs Selling Brand Beckham: Yes There Is A Conflict - Laurie - 2
- Droyslden FC - The Romance of Non-League Football - Ralf Haley - 1
- Assured Ferdinand Finally Comes Of Age - Paul Meadows - 1
- Shock Development: Keano’s Angry - John Conroy - 1
- It’s a Fickle Old Game - Shaun Daley - 1
- Studies Show That Football Managers Are, Well, Insane - Eddie Griffin - 1
- Sexism in Football - Julia - 1
- Oh No! The Big Bad Foreigner is Coming to Ruin English Football - Sam Adriance - 1
Wrapping It Up
Congratulations to Gerry McDonnell for winning the top prize, and to Kris Gonzalez, Saad Hanif and Wesley Rasdorf for winning the top votes. All of you should have received my emails by now.
A few people missed out, I think - Adam Mourad, Laurie and Shane Coghlan were good enough to win, and Tahira Hanif was desperately unlucky not to get any votes despite writing one of the best articles in the competition. I’ll be in touch with you four, and a few more writers from the competition that I haven’t mentioned here, to discuss how we can collaborate further.
Thank you for participating everyone, and thank you SL readers for reading and commenting on the articles. Hopefully we’ll run this again next year (April sounds like a good time, 2 year Soccerlens anniversary as well), so keep an eye out for that.
UNDESERVING WINNER!!!
Meh. I’ll be interested to check the quality of his posts over the next couple of months.
I thought you said they’d be judged on how much debate they’d generate? How can a person who had a single comment win?
sour grapes
In terms of debate, Wesley did quite a good job (came in 3rd perhaps because his piece was 2000 words). And yes, it will be interesting to check the quality of Gerry’s posts over the next couple of months.
I think Gerry’s was an interesting piece, although I do believe that in terms of writing skill, Kris (who came in 2nd) was better… but very good contributions from both.
BAH HUMBUG AHMAD!!!
Hey!!!i don’t get mentioned at all??my article got one of the most comments!!
Congratulations to Gerry McDonnell for the winning entry.
Soccerlens should be commended for the exposure that was provided to 40 submissions. Myself, along with two of my guest contributors, Jim Riggio and Dan Leo, greatly appreciated another avenue to display our work.
Thank you, Ahmed, along with the judges and the Soccerlens community.
Steve Amoia
World Football Commentaries
http://calcio1.blogspot.com
“Oh No! The Big Bad Foreigner is Coming to Ruin English Football - Sam Adriance” I thought was the best. Should have won.
However, well done to Gerry McDonnell.
Thanks very much to all the judges, i was genuinely surprised by the win.
I hope all future articles are as well received, but i seriously doubt it.
God bless you all.
Wesley should have won, hands down. Top article
Saad H was by far the man with ideas, shame he didn’t make it.