Hodgson’s Manager of the Year award questioned after voter fraud scandal

ROY HODGSON’S victory in the LMA Manager of the Year vote has been called into question after it was discovered that hundreds of sacked managers were on the electoral register and may have been used to fix the decisive ballot.

At first it was presumed that Fulham’s startling 12th place finish coupled with Hodgson’s solid deployment of zonal marking and eloquent niceness had been enough to secure him a 99 per cent share of the popular vote, but disgruntled backers of other frontrunners like Sam Allardyce and Owen Coyle have protested the result.

“We thought it was strange that Hodgson polled 16,483 votes out the 92 managers in the Football League,” said Coyle’s campaign manager Al Gull. “So I looked through the list of names and saw the likes of Ronnie Moran, Les Reed and Sir Herbert Chapman. Something didn’t seem quite right.”

At Gull’s request, police in Derby and Hull investigated reports that votes had been cast from The Baseball Ground and Boothferry Park respectively, both of which no longer feature on the electoral register. In Peterborough the Cambridgeshire constabulary confirmed that six votes had been received from the manager’s office at London Road, one for every manager the Posh had last season plus two currently “unaccounted for”.

In a related development, Fulham chairman Mohamed Al-Fayed strenuously denied reports emanating from the LMA’s HQ that he employed Lily Allen’s grandad as a heavy to intimidate voters in London. “This is almost certainly a conspiracy theory emanating from Prince Philip and his murderous cronies,” said Al-Fayed. “The media should accept this result and quit from pursuing me like some of sort criminal.”

Hodgson however, has refused to be drawn into the debate and said today that he was delighted to collect the hallowed golden dugout trophy.

“I will use my victory for the good of football, and to bring about real change,” said Hodgson. “I will push through my pro-Zamora, anti-tracksuit, anti-headset policies that will take managing back to its purest form.”

Elsewhere, the voting process for the League One award, which went to Paul Lambert, was criticised by independent observers after complaints that new rules disenfranchised mangers who could not prove a blood link to Scotland.

Published May 14, 2010

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