Football in Berkshire contributor Neil Maskell has made his decisions
Boost the nominees chances by sharing this article
In lieu of Football in Berkshire being able to hold it’s annual award ceremony, regular contributors to the site have been asked to make their own decisions over seven categories, from Player of the Season to the best game attended.
Tom Canning has already made his decisions here, now it is the turn of Maidenhead United’s Neil Maskell to make his choices based on what he has seen during 2020/21.
Nicole Barrett. The right-back has been a revelation for Maidenhead United Women since joining this summer. Nicole has previously been with Reading and Oxford and that high level of soccer is obvious from her composure and quality on the ball. Most recently playing in the States, she has set up her own caching business – ABC Kick – from scratch, engaging local youngster in Woodley every weekend. Nicole has great energy and has an infectious personality.
Nevin Saroya. The MUWFC gaffer has improved his side immeasurably. Before lockdown his team had enjoyed a run to Round 1 of the Women FA Cup and made their best-ever start to a FAWNL season.
Rich Harvey. Whether it is pitch prep or painting, Rich does so much to help in the background at Holyport FC
Bracknell Town 2-3 Havant & Waterlooville. Probably the only match I have been to this season that had anything like a ‘proper’ matchday atmosphere. The Robins gave high-flying and big-spending National South side Havant a proper game in the FA Trophy and were the better team for a long period with 10 men at 1-1.
Ascot United. I made my first visit to the revamped Racecourse Ground, Ascot with its new 3G pitch. Excellent set up there now, worthy of Step 4 football soon, I hope.
Woodley United Ladies: I do enjoy the Woodley United Ladies Twitter account, which has been active and upbeat during Lockdown.
I was lucky enough to be reporting for FiB at the Madejski to witness by some distance the best footballing performance I have seen this season. Reading-born Fran Kirby put her home town club to the sword with a stunning four-goal salvo. She was unplayable. I have to confess having seen her play in the flesh for the first time I had previously underestimated her ability. In terms of Reading-born athletes, she is up there with the likes of test cricketers Peter May and Ken Barrington in terms of demonstrating her skills on a national and world stage.
Agree with Neil’s selections? You can make your own choices by filling out the form below. Please note, a selection of these will be published over the next few weeks:
Please try to avoid one-word answers and give a little explanation as to why you have chosen them.
Yes! The awards are taking place at the marvellous Double-Barrelled Brewery in Reading and we’ll have food available. Tickets will be limited but on sale from 18th May. If you’d like to know when, so you don’t miss out, make sure you’ve signed up to our email newsletter here.
Scroll down to the bottom of this article for the nomination form. Before you do that though, here’s what the judging panel are looking for when choosing the shortlist.
What’s the story? Tell us exactly why the person or place should be considered. We hate to get all ‘X Factor journey’ on you but the more detail you can include, the better we can argue for your nominee for the short list.
The sort of details we love to see include things like player awards, goals, clean sheets and any other significant contributions to the footballing community – obviously within the 2025/26 season.
We’ll publish all the nominees for the Berkshire Football Awards as we receive them.
You can view all the 2025 nominees so far here.6
Want to know who’s previously won what at the Berkshire Football Awards? There’s a big long page with all the previous winners here.
Nominations will be open until midnight on Sunday 10th May 2026.
The Long List will be published on Friday 15th May and the Short List on Monday 18th May at midday.
Once the nomination window has closed, the nominations in each category will be put before a panel of over 20 judges for a decision, the top four announced online and the winners at the awards night on Wednesday 10th June.
We will accept nominations for people out of area, the only prerequisite is that the reason for nomination is that it must be because of an affiliation with a club we cover on Football in Berkshire (a full list is at the bottom of this page). We will present certificates and a trophy to the winners.
What’s next? Look out for the Long List of all the nominations which will be published here and across all our channels by midday on Friday 15th May 2026.
The Short List for each category will then be published at midday on Monday 18th May 2026. At that point, tickets will be made available to attend the awards night at Double-Barrelled Brewery in Reading on the evening of Wednesday 10th June 2026. If you’d like notification of when tickets are available, sign up to our newsletter here.
Headline Sponsor
Award Sponsors
