Alfie May Wins PFA League One Player of the Year
Alfie May has been voted the PFA League One Player of the Year after a stand-out season for Charlton Athletic.
May won the Golden Boot in the third tier after netting 23 times for the Reds. The 31-year-old was a model of consistency throughout the season and also bagged the PFA League One Fans’ Player of the Month award in October after scoring seven in six games.
The forward was alongside a number of top players on the PFA membership’s Top Six shortlist to claim the prize, including Harrison Burrows, Colby Bishop, Ephron Mason-Clark, Marlon Pack and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing.
Chris Davies has changed Alfie May’s plan for life after Birmingham City
Alfie May enjoyed a successful first season at Birmingham City with 16 goals and a League One winners’ medal
Alfie May might be on the wrong side of 30 and contemplating life after football, but Chris Davies has managed to teach Birmingham City’s number nine new tricks.
May will turn 32 in July and has no plans to retire having just reached the Championship for the first time in his career after four consecutive goal-laden seasons in League One.
Blues signed one of League One’s leading marksmen to fire them to promotion at the first attempt and May obliged with 16 goals in all competitions, plus nine assists, despite not always starting under Davies.
May arrived as an out-and-out number nine with a penchant for goals and not much else. Davies has made May a more rounded attacker and occasionally used him in positions other than his preferred one.
A year with Davies has made May think differently about football and changed the way that he intends to coach now that he has started working towards his badges.
The striker said: “From the minute we met him, he set out how he wants to work and when we’re in, we work. You actually want to turn up and do training because the details of the gaffer and his football knowledge is superb.
“As a senior pro, I’m learning the other side of the game and understanding football. I’m doing my coaching badges at the minute and the way that he’s changed my philosophy in the game and the way I want to play is unbelievable. The details that he goes down to is incredible.
“He drives it and he said from the start that he would drive it. He needs us with him – togetherness, group, culture. We had a whole new team, sometimes that doesn’t happen, you don’t achieve things.
“It’s how you are as a person. Your ability will get you so far, it’s how you are as an individual and we’ve got a changing room full of unbelievable players and people. They are a pleasure to call teammates.”
‘Won’t happen again’ – Tom Wagner makes new Birmingham City pledge and confirms plan ‘unlike any other’
Birmingham City chairman Tom Wagner has made a pledge to fans about the club’s future and has provided an update on plans for a new 62,000-seater stadium.
Blues’ record-breaking 111-point season to win the League One title and earn promotion back to the Championship is just the first step of many, with Wagner aiming to build momentum. Birmingham’s owner is determined to ensure the upward trajectory of the club doesn’t stagnate and instead continues for many years to come.
As well as securing promotion, Birmingham recently announced another big step. Blues’ academy has regained the Category One status it had lost under the previous ownership, a significant moment in Blues’ mission to source and develop some of the country’s best young talent, just as they did with the Bellingham brothers.
Wagner recently spoke of his delight at the club’s progress at Birmingham’s title celebration evening at the International Convention Centre (ICC). The American addressed around 1,000 supporters and confirmed plans for the new ‘Sports Quarter’ is set to include a new 62,000-capacity stadium. He hopes the prospect can inspire the next generation.
“For every young person who walks into that training ground to become a member of our academy, soon they will see images of where they will play when they come of age. It will be a place unlike any other that exists in European football,” Wagner said.
It certainly won’t be straightforward for Blues’ ambitious stadium plans to go ahead as there are several complex hurdles to overcome. Discussions are underway with local and national government, though, with Wagner determined to build a brighter future for the community as well as the football club.
When updating fans on the stadium situation, Wagner revealed there have been pushbacks he’s actively trying to navigate, as he admitted: “I was talking with one of our consultants who represents us in our project. I asked for some advice and he said, ‘I think you need to tone it down. Some of what you do isn’t in line with traditions here’.
“I replied, ‘Why do you say that? Because I don’t really care’. He said, ‘You are drawing the ire of some of the biggest clubs in England’. I responded, ‘How? We have only just come out of League One?’. And, do you know what he said? He said, ‘It’s because they know that you’re coming’.
“So, I will say this and I’ll say it right now – we all know where we are going and we will get there. We cannot be afraid to show our pride. We lost a generation of fans to poor results and that won’t happen again.
“I’m proud to be a blue and I will be for life. We are only getting started. Birmingham is on the rise and anyone who doesn’t believe me, well, they know our answer.”
Read on: Predictions have already been made for how Birmingham will get on in their return to the Championship next season, with likely points totals already calculated.
