Arsenal fans will pounce on the irony of a Birmingham fan winning something to do with fair play and inspired by Eduardo. But the issues are separate, and Kevin Ball is a deserving winner …
We’re open to accusations of cheating ourselves, that we manipulated the result to ensure yet another Mackem connection to Salut! Sunderland competition prizewinners, if only in name.
But look at the replies people gave and Kevin Ball, who runs the Birmingham fan site Joys and Sorrows fully merits his selection as winner of our Pretend Fair Play league, inspired by rival fans’ responses to the Eduardo question: would you take – gladly or guiltily – or almost wish you could decline a trophy/title/survival won by a penalty scored after a blatant dive?
Kevin, their Kevin Ball not ours, did not mince words when he responded – in this posting – to our question:
“I’m old fashioned, I can’t abide cheating. I don’t care if it is a Blues player or not. I would be furious.”
It was a tough decision but Kevin’s blunt, unqualified statement of honesty made him the winner, as explained at this link.
He wins the life-changing prize of a copy of Lance Hardy’s book about the 1973 FA Cup Final. It’s a Sunderlandcentric book, of course, but good enough to have the critics drooling and non-SAFC fans applauding.
Once Kevin lets me have his address, the prize will be on its way.
Colin Randall