KUMB Special Merit Award 2006

This season KUMB is introducing a new award, the KUMB Special Merit Award. This will be awarded from time to time to the person or persons who, in the opinion of the KUMB management team, have made an outstanding contribution to the club or its supporters over the course of the previous season. This award will not necessarily be awarded every year, only if and when the management feels that there has been a deserving case.

It is fair to say that few of us, this time last year, could have anticipated the highs that were to follow the play-off final. However, right from the incredible atmosphere of the opening 3-1 victory at home to Blackburn all the way through to the emotion of the FA Cup Final, we have been treated to some fantastic football, underpinned by the signs of a team spirit second to none. When the players got together in a huddle before certain matches in the relegation season it looked, well, gimmicky. When they did it before the Cup final you knew that you were looking at eleven guys who meant it. Eleven guys who were there for each other.

The arrival of this new-found spirit was no accident. When Alan Pardew was appointed manager in 2003 he arrived at a club that had damn-well near had its soul ripped out. A combination of financial necessity coupled with a squad containing a number of players who simply didn’t want to be there meant that the playing squad needed transforming and it needed it quick. Out went players who couldn’t be bothered to turn up on time for training and those who were happy to pick up a Premiership paycheck for sub-Championship performances and in came players who wanted to win for their mates and for the fans, players who would, quite simply, work their socks off.

This transformation was no easy task. The difference between the quality of football played at Championship-level and that required in the top-flight is, frankly, scary and the type of player that thrives in the top level often struggles to make an impression one rung down the ladder. Pardew had the added pressure of coming to a club with a rich history and a tradition surrounding the style of football expected by its supporters. The Championship is a difficult enough league to get out of at the best of times without playing football while you’re at it, so it’s hardly surprising that it was a sometimes bumpy road.

Yes there were a few mistakes along the way and, yes, there were elements of discontent amongst the fans. However, a cursory trawl through the regular polls run on this site would suggest that fewer supporters than you would have thought were actually calling for the manager’s head and the next time someone brings the matter up you might want to think about the media’s habit of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story.

So where are we today? We are in the Premiership having finished in the top ten. We are the FA Cup runners-up. We are in Europe. We are financially healthy. We have a small but decent squad to which we are in a position to add during the summer. All in all it’s a far cry from those depressing days of relegation. For that we predominately have one person to thank.

So, for turning things round, for getting us up, for restoring our pride and for giving the club back its soul the first KUMB Special Merit Award goes to Alan Pardew.

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