What the editor said: Tom Canning’s opening notes

Football in Berkshire co-editor Tom Canning opened the 2022 Berkshire Football Awards with a few words. Here’s what he said.

Hello and welcome to the 2022 Berkshire Football Awards sponsored by Eddie Stobart. I’ve been thinking about what to say here as a little intro before handing over to the much more eloquent Tom White.

And I was thinking about what local football has done for me. It’s given me friendships, it’s started me on a career path I’m still travelling and it’s become more than just 90 minutes on a pitch – I use this word a lot, but the community, this community we – and I mean everyone in this room – has built, is more than club rivalries, arguments and divides.

It’s friendship. And after three disrupted years, I think that’s become so important.

So thank you everyone for being an important part of that, whether you win tonight or not. It’s important for me to get across that everyone plays a role.

I wanted to thank Steve Witty at Eddie Stobart for his offer of sponsorship tonight. I wanted to thank as well ManVFat, Calibra Tree Surgeons, Lens Digital, Rural Pie Co, Since 71 Blog, Severn Sport, NG Sports Photography, Ascot Sports Bar, STAR and Berks County for their kind sponsorship of the individual awards tonight.

Finally, I want to thank the Football in Berkshire team for a sterling job this season so if you could please stand up Rob Davies, Steve Gabb, Neil Maskell, Alicia Povey, Tony Hardy and especially Abi Ticehurst – without whom a lot of tonight wouldn’t have happened. A round of applause, please!

More on the 2022 Berkshire Football Awards: All the winners | Hall of Fame | In Memoriam

Related Topics: Berkshire Football Awards

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Nominations open:

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NOMINATIONS ARE NOW OPEN!

Can I come to the Berkshire Football Awards?

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.

How to nominate someone for a Berkshire Football Award

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.

Who has been nominated already?

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

Honours board

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.

Rules

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.

All nominations are done by you, the Berkshire footballing public
You can nominate as many people as you like for each award – the quantity of nominations counts for the judging panel..
That said, quality is just as important, the more detail you provide about why you are nominating, the better
Please try and avoid nominating your own family members
Due to difficulties in obtaining permissions under child protection laws we won’t consider any player under the age of 16 for nomination in any of the categories

Nomination Form

Nominations for the 2026 Grundon Berkshire Football Awards are now closed!

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 notified as soon as the Long and Short Lists are published, and when tickets are available, sign up to our newsletter here.

Can’t see the new form properly? Open it in a new window here.