Vanarama, sponsors of the Football Conference, is pleased to announce they will be bringing innovations into play in recognition of performances and commitments both on the field and off it during the coming season, through a number of awards to be made at various times.
There will be four named categories of awards and these are outlined with given criteria.
VANARAMA ‘MANAGER OF THE MONTH’
As in previous seasons a recipient will be selected and an announcement made at the end of every calendar month of the chosen manager from each of the three Vanarama divisions.
Nomination and final selection will be vested in an independent awards panel featuring representatives from Vanarama, the media, SportQuake and the Football Conference.
The award will no longer be based solely on a points system of team performance of wins. The criterion change will enable any manager to be considered, allowing a more pragmatic approach to allow recognition of true worthiness and not just solely aligned to team performance of winning more matches than any other club. This new system permits more freedom of choice in recognition, which it is believed is much fairer.
Presentations will be made to the respective winners by a representative of the sponsors Vanarama at the first home match after the announcement of the winner.
As in the past, annual awards in this category will be made at the end of the season.
VANARAMA ‘PLAYER OF THE MONTH’
In a similar approach of selection in this category, the new system wishes to move away from the recipient being a player who invariably scores most goals in a month. To aid this decision making, prior to final selection of a player every month from each division, an initial nomination list will be submitted of three players in each division, by a group of journalists who follow Vanarama Conference football week in, week out. The final decision will again be vested in the awards panel.
Once again it is felt to be a fairer representation of individual contribution to team performance rather than who just scores. It will permit consideration of an outstanding single event which might arise and allow recognition for goalkeepers, defenders and other players to be considered in the equation for nomination and final selection.
This procedure will not affect the annual selection of players nominated by divisional managers which make up the respective ‘Team of the Year’ in each division. Neither will the ‘Golden Boot’ award in each division be affected for the top goalscorer.
Presentations will be made to the respective winners by a representative of the sponsors Vanarama at the first home match after the announcement of the winner.
VANARAMA ‘PIC OF THE MONTH’
A new award for the best action photograph taken on a selected competition match day every month has been trialled, with the first winner for August being Matt Bradshaw of cornerflagimages.com, who is the Club Photographer of Chelmsford City.
This new award caters for an important area of match contribution which previously has gone unrecognised.
A strict entry criterion is in place, though the award is open to anyone who is a licensed photographer, registered with the Football Conference.
From one photograph submitted by each entrant, eight will be chosen for publication on the Conference WebApp for a period of four weeks and from those eight Vanarama will select an overall winner, who will receive a framed certificate on velum with a copy of the photograph.
At the end of the season each member club will be invited to submit their own personal selected photograph for display, from which one will be chosen as ‘Pic of the Year’ by an independent and professional sports photographer.
VANARAMA ‘CLUB AMBASSADOR’
In recognition of the sterling work carried out by clubs in their community and in particular the support of club projects funded in conjunction with the Football Conference Community Trust, nominations each quarter will be made to a selection panel from the Trust, to decide the recipient of this new award.
It is the fervent wish of Vanarama this special award will encourage even more playing personnel and management staff at clubs to give some quality time to embrace an important aspect of club engagement in their community.
An overall ‘Ambassador of the Year’ will be selected and this award will be presented at the Vanarama Conference Gala Awards Evening in June 2015
