And the winner is...

Arguably one the highlights of the week is the almost Internationally acclaimed Awards Night.

The awards first came into existence in 2008 after a week long refereeing trip in Ayr that Easter where Rocky and I picked up new recruits of Paul Mosley, Dave Jones (Soz) and Jamie Reekie. I’m ashamed to say the awards night was born by utter plagiarism lifting their award categories and voting format. Over the years it became more ceremonial with yours truly pushing every single boundary with what became “the speech”. Due to legal advice I cannot share my speeches in their entirety! Branfjell hall is normally standing room only for the speech and whilst I do enjoy doing it and don’t claim to be any good at it, its good to have some fun!

The awards have really trimmed down over the years and are reasonably serious. We now have some awards named after fantastic stalwarts of Norway Cup.

The David Chinnery Award for Best Newcomer and The Steve Crossman Award for Services to Norway Cup are our first two examples celebrating the incredible contribution to the British Referees Group.

A crowd favourite has always been the Twat of the Week award. Awarded following anecdotes from the crowd and democratic vote, the winner is duly crowned. From my first year there was always a Twat of the Week competition which was done internally and just a named accolade.

The famous Yellow TShirt made its first appearance in 2006 with the inaugural winner being Mark Daniel. As a devoted West Brom fan, he decided to wind the shit up out of the Wolves fans by dumping their shirts over the Basketball hoop in the one year we stayed at Holtet school.

The yellow Tshirt has been awarded to no more than 16 separate winners since the first award back in 1999 with Chris Husband being the first ever (and most lovable) Twat. Sadly, I hold the special achievement of topping the polls 3 times.

In other notable firsts:

- Jack Scott became the first ReVote by Kangaroo Court in 2018 stripping Tom Knight of his award.

- Chris Howes in 2017 became the first International Twat of the Week having been presented the T-shirt in Dana Cup and was served notice by Kangaroo court to wear it on transit to Oslo from Dana.

The full Hall of Fame:

1999

Chris Husband (1)

For leaving his passport on the plane

2000

Dave Etheridge (1)

Unknown

2001

Chris Rock (1)

Unknown

2002

Julian Canny (1)

For having intentional and very consensual sex with Rocky’s bird

2003

Julian Canny (2)

For being absent 90% of Norway Cup

2004

Andy Cox (1)

For being Coxy

2005

Andy Cox (2)

For playing knock up ginger at the Sekretariat’s house – and being caught doing it at 3am

2006

Mark Daniel (1)

For hoarding all Wolves shirts and putting them on the Basketball hoop

2007

Chris Williams (1)

For falsely claiming he slapped Coxy

2008

Brian Humphries (1)

For realising his passport was out of date the day before Norway Cup and having to go to Liverpool to get an emergency Passport.

2009

James Campbell (1)

For the infamous scandal of getting lost at Rustad6

2010

James Campbell (2)

For ordering New Zealand Dollars by mistake

2011

Jamie Reekie (1)

For losing the key to his locker which contained his currency, passport etc

2012

Chris Williams (2)

For playing up to the crowd when denying his lame nomination was twatty enough and ended up being a twat

2013

Dudley Haylock (1)

We just cannot talk about it…

2014

Euan Birch (1)

For bringing cones to do circuits during rest days

2015

Chris Howes (1)

For going for a walk gate – being royally stitched up texting Ann Wenche Kleven instead of her very pretty daughter

2016

Chris Howes (2)

For booking the wrong return flight and spending an extra £200 to get home

2017

James Campbell (3)

For being incorrect in law on his final – lame curveball by Sheridan for avoiding the vote

2018

Tom Knight (1)

For trying to buy a round in Lektern using Euros

2018 – Revote

Jack Scott (1)

Later that night… For getting a lapdance off a shemale

2019

Giani Pop (1)

For antics in Oslo City Mall and ending a game early live on TV

With Norway Cup 2020 being voided due to Coronavirus, there will be a special vote for Twat of the Decade – we await in anticipation of who it might be!