Top sport writing prize for UEL student

Published

01 May 2024

University of East London student Tom Chambers has won the 2024 Hugh McIlvanney Student Football Writer of the Year award.

Tom’s piece, a review of a concert by former footballer Eric Cantona, won the top prize at the Football Writers Association (FWA) Student Awards. Tom faced competition from hundreds of other budding football writers, with all of them striving to meet the competition brief, which called for originality, insight and delivery. Tom commented, "I have always had an interest in music and so when I heard that Eric Cantona was releasing his own album and going on tour, I was very keen to write a feature on it - fortunately my colleagues were supportive of the idea.

“When I submitted my entry, I never thought that I would actually win! Fortunately, Eric Cantona is a particularly colourful character to write about and I will be eternally grateful to the judges at the FWA for naming me the Hugh McIlvanney Student Football Writer of the Year, especially when there were so many fantastic entries on the shortlist."

Paul McCarthy, Chief Executive of the FWA added, "The outstanding qualities of Tom's submission were the confidence and ease with which he wrote. The judges were taken by the flow of his work that showed maturity and bodes well for a future in the industry in whatever direction he chooses."

Last summer, Tom, a final-year student, secured an internship at ESPN where he wrote and edited sports news and features, while also reporting on matches and events. Upon graduation, he hopes to secure a permanent job in the industry that will allow him to continue writing and reporting on sport.

The award judges included industry figures Jason Burt, Adam Crafton, Jacqui Oatley and Alyson Rudd. Their decision to pick Tom means he’ll receive a cash prize of £1000 at the FWA Footballer of the Year dinner on May 16.

The association was formed in 1947 to represent the interests of football writers in England and has grown to over 800 full and student members. It works with football clubs, governing bodies and groups such as the Sports Journalists’ Association, Women in Football, Sports Media LGBT+ and others.

Find out more about UEL’s Sports Journalism courses.

Read Tom’s full piece:

An Evening with the King: Cantona sings Eric

“I’ve been heroic / I’ve been criminal / I’ve been angelic / I’ve been infernal / You hate me / You love me / I’m only judged by myself.”

Manchester United legend Eric Cantona is back performing in front of a crowd, re-modelled as a world-weary troubadour, and his opening lyrics are exactly as you’d expect.

A stripped-back version of the autobiographical “I’ll Make My Own Heaven,” which begins his set at London’s Bloomsbury Theatre, refers to the most infamous moment of Cantona’s footballing career: The night he kung-fu kicked a Crystal Palace fan after being sent off at Selhurst Park in 1995. An incident that earned him a nine-month ban and a 14-day prison sentence.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Cantona’s sound is an unsteady mix of Nick Cave, Serge Gainsbourg and late-era Leonard Cohen. His heavy French accent and gruff, melancholic singing voice, while pleasant on his debut EP, loses some of its consistency when heard live, but there is craftmanship in his chansons, the majority of which he wrote on his own during the pandemic.

The audience can broadly be divided into three categories: middle-aged United fans, spouses of middle-aged United fans, and children of middle-aged United fans. They could have been forgiven for being a little slow to fall under Cantona’s spell, as the show began just two hours after United were beaten 3-0 by Manchester City at Old Trafford, but the near sell-out crowd was instantly enraptured by the man they still call “The King.”

Asked why they had each paid £50 to see an ex-footballer’s attempt to break into the music world, many gave me the same answer: “It’s Eric.” There were fans who had travelled from Bristol, Southampton and Cantona’s native France to be in the presence of one of United’s – and the Premier League’s – greatest-ever players.

But Cantona has always been more than just a footballer. Despite playing his last match 26 years ago, he continues to affect people in a way other players do not. His devotees had heeded the call, snapped up the tickets and come to worship at the altar of Cantona. While some showed their reverence discreetly, others proudly wore United shirts with ‘Cantona No. 7’ on the back. One man even had a tattoo of his hero’s name on his wrist.

Of course, music is not the only artistic endeavour that Cantona has thrown himself into since his shock retirement from football in 1997. His acting talents have seen him star in more than 30 films. His performance in the Ken Loach-directed “Looking for Eric” received critical acclaim and included a scene in which postman Eric Bishop (played by Steve Evets), says to his sporting hero: “Sometimes we forget that you’re just a man.”

Cantona’s career arc really is quite remarkable. It is hard to imagine an elite footballer today making the same leap into the world of the arts. Is Kevin De Bruyne contemplating the pitfalls of society through the medium of interpretive dance? Unlikely. Mason Mount penning an epic lament to a life left unlived? A tantalising prospect, but unfortunately not on the cards. But there he is, the Premier League’s overseas player of the decade 1992-2002, up there on stage and midway through a headline tour, crooning to a delighted audience: “I feel like a lizard / I’ve never been a lizard / But I can imagine / Because I drink / A sex on the beach.”

Perhaps it was inevitable that Cantona would end up here. He was always the Premier League’s rock star; an extravagant free-thinker with a natural distrust of authority and a strained relationship with the law. His natural charisma really is something to behold in the intimate London theatre.

That being said, for a man with only four studio-recorded songs, the hour-and-a-half-long set did seem slightly extravagant. But then as with his footballing career, perhaps he knows he does his best work over 90 minutes.
Cantona saves his most famous quote for last in the show’s closer: “I Love You So Much,” an unapologetic love letter to the United faithful. “When the seagulls follow the trawler it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea,” he sings with a smirk, referencing his iconic press conference that followed the incident at Palace. He continues: “Then the press called me the greatest philosopher who ever lived. They were completely right.”

Our last glimpse of the man, before he departs the stage, is of him standing with his chest pumped out, scanning his audience, soaking up the adoration in the same way he did after chipping Sunderland goalkeeper Lionel Perez in December 1996. And almost three decades later, that is perhaps what everyone is here for; not for his music, but to bask in Cantona’s presence just one more time.