The winner of the 1st Soccerlens Writing Competition has been decided.

You can read all 40 entries here – I’d like at least half of the submitters to guest blog again on Soccerlens (I’ll be contacting writers personally over the weekend). If you’d like to write for Soccerlens again / find out about setting up a football blog of your own, tell me here.

Here’s a recap of the prizes and the judges:

Prizes:

For the winner:

$100 cash.Free footy shirt courtesy of our sponsors Subside Sports.Contract offer to write on Soccerlens.

For #1 – #3 (or more):

The option of getting financial assistance in starting / promoting their own blogs as part of the network of blogs we’re running.

Judges:

Ed Harrison – Newcastle United blogMarco Pantanella – mCalcio blogNic – FC Barcelona blogRed Ranter – Manchester United blogV – KicketteAhmed Bilal – Soccerlens

Each judge picked 5 top entries (a total of 30 votes) – the articles were judged on quality of writing, analysis (and depth of knowledge), humour and entertainment value. I’ve tallied the votes and listed all of them at below.

Votes and Winners

Two entries were tied for 3rd place, so both will be invited to set up a blog with the FM network.

A Naan and a Leg – Gerry McDonnell – 5

The Heart of Football – Kris Gonzalez – 4

The Hidden Diaries of Ashley Cole – Saad Hanif – 3

A Goal or Not a Goal: Official Assisted Technology Systems – Wesley Rasdorf – 3

The Rest:

How a Moustache Might Save Football – Adam Mourad – 2Where are my Cheerleaders – Shane Coghlan – 2Can Money Buy You Happiness in the Premier League – James Massoud – 2“Saving” American Soccer vs Selling Brand Beckham: Yes There Is A Conflict – Laurie – 2Droyslden FC – The Romance of Non-League Football – Ralf Haley – 1Assured Ferdinand Finally Comes Of Age – Paul Meadows – 1Shock Development: Keano’s Angry – John Conroy – 1It’s a Fickle Old Game – Shaun Daley – 1Studies Show That Football Managers Are, Well, Insane – Eddie Griffin – 1Sexism in Football – Julia – 1Oh No! The Big Bad Foreigner is Coming to Ruin English Football – Sam Adriance – 1

Wrapping It Up

Congratulations to Gerry McDonnell for winning the top prize, and to Kris Gonzalez, Saad Hanif and Wesley Rasdorf for winning the top votes. All of you should have received my emails by now.

A few people missed out, I think – Adam Mourad, Laurie and Shane Coghlan were good enough to win, and Tahira Hanif was desperately unlucky not to get any votes despite writing one of the best articles in the competition. I’ll be in touch with you four, and a few more writers from the competition that I haven’t mentioned here, to discuss how we can collaborate further.

Thank you for participating everyone, and thank you SL readers for reading and commenting on the articles. Hopefully we’ll run this again next year (April sounds like a good time, 2 year Soccerlens anniversary as well), so keep an eye out for that.