How Eversley & California were Paul Watson’s trump card on the Football Cliches Podcast

Berkshire Football Awards host Paul Watson has had an exciting few weeks.

A book launch and live podcast show, appearances on some of the most popular football podcasts in the country (perhaps the World?), culminating in his hosting of our awards night on Wednesday 10th June.

Actually, scratch that, he’s off to the World Cup on Thursday with the Guardian Football Weekly team.

This will be Paul’s third year hosting the event at Double-Barrelled Brewery in Reading, and despite being a Bristol-native he’s really taken the Royal County to heart – and his newfound knowledge has helped him out in unexpected places.

Paul Watson could be presenting a new award this season. Photos: Neil Graham.

Take a recent appearance on the Football Cliches podcast quiz episode from 13th May – dubbed Cliches vs The Sweeper – The Rematch.

Around 41 minutes into the episode (listen below), the question is asked: Which of these is not a real name of a club in this seasons FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round?

The options? Hereford Pegasus, Mousehole, Eversley & California or Co-op FC?

Clearly believing they’d stumped Paul (and his The Sweeper co-host Lee Wingate because, well they cover niche football around Europe and the rest of the world), they didn’t bank on our hero being the host of the Berkshire Football Awards).

“I’m sure you all know this, but I host the Berkshire Football Awards every year!”

We’re absolutely delighted Paul’s Berkshire knowledge is treating him well and we hope he’ll pick up some more nuggets at this year’s event.

There are a few tickets now left on sale but you’ll need to be quick. Paul will also be available to sign copies of his new book ‘Around The World In 80 Clubs‘, as we are sure he’ll also sign copies of his old book, Up Pohnpei!

And.. in case you didn’t hear our brief mention on today’s Guardian Football Weekly, it’s right at the very beginning!

The 2026 Catergories

Berkshire Football Awards news

How Eversley & California were Paul Watson’s trump card on the Football Cliches Podcast

By Tom Canning

Live: Watch the 2026 Grundon Berkshire Football Awards

By Tom Canning

Nominations open:

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NOMINATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED!

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.