Young Player of the Season

With YOUR help Vital Blackburn has been trying to determine what have been the best and worst of the Blackburn Rovers 2006-2007 season.

The nominations are still be taken for ONE other Award (Player of the Year) but the Vital Blackburn Awards for 2006-2007 reach it’s penultimate Award to be dished out with the

Young Player of the Season

When asked to simply leave the name of your Young Player of the Season most felt?

Matt Derbyshire should be the Award Winner! So congratulations Derbyshire on picking up the accolade.

Derbs was a unanimous winner of this Award, and one other (David Bentley) could have come into the reckoning, with the other an almost certain winner of a higher honour Derbs deservingly picked up this one.

For some years now we have known of the name Matthew Derbyshire, but hadn’t really seen much of him, apart from a substitute appearance. He enjoyed a successful loan spell with Wrexham (after a not so successful one with Plymouth Argyle, for varying reasons) but seemed destined for another loan spell during 2006-2007, with Mark Hughes saying as much this time last year.

New arrivals looked certain to see this happen, but nothing came off despite some Championship interest. As calls became stronger for him to get a chance (with Hughes Da Man leading this bandwagon!!!) as he was scoring for fun in the reserves (along with Joe Garner, a player I think could make a similar impact to Derbs) injuries handed Derbs his chance and how he took it.

It is not always about talent, you also need a little fortune and Derbs did get this with the injuries to others, but after he got his chance he looked ever inch the part, leaving more established and renowned names such as Francis Jeffers, Shabani Nonda and Jason Roberts looking on as he kept them out of the side. Eventually he did lose his place, but he still played a major part in the rest of the season and his future looks VERY bright.

Derbs capped a dream season by marking his England Under-21 debut with a goal in the first match at the New Wembley (Bentley had become the first Englishman to do this before him) and is currently a part of the England squad at the European Under-21 Championship Finals in Holland, scoring as a substitute against Serbia on Sunday.

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Thanks for voting on this, PLEASE KEEP your votes coming in for the LAST Award (Player of the Year) as there is STILL time to vote so click here for the list of categories and vote on that one.


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