CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF THE PEA AWARDS 1973 - 2023

On August 29, the Professional Footballers’ Association celebrates a half-century of giving out gongs for great individual seasons. Erling Haaland won’t receive the same sort of smooch that Les Ferdinand did, but he should follow in famous footsteps, from Elton John to Steve Ogrizovic

- Andrew Murray

The only thing peers did in July 1973 was wear ostentatious red dressing gowns Lords. By the end of the football season nine months later, peers held the key to the sport's most coveted new individual prize.

The Football Writers' Association (FWA) had been voting for the country's best player for 26 years, but those who did the on-field heavy lifting each week weren't entrusted with such significant responsibility. That was until PFA secretary Cliff Lloyd and chairman Derek Dougan combined forces in 1973-74.

In the previous decade, the players' union had won notable High Court cases to abolish the £20 maximum wage and require freedom of contract, thanks to former players Jimmy Hill and George Eastham respectively. Now Dougan, a Wolves forward who espoused collective players' rights, wanted to promote the image of footballers in a more creative way. Naturally, that involved Norman Hunter dressed in a frilly-fronted pastel dinner shirt, to match lamb-chop sideburns, on stage at a Park Lane hotel as the PFA's first Players' Player of the Year.

"The footballer's image as a thick-headed yokel who needs constant discipline and cannot be trusted to manage his affairs is a distant throwback," declared a beaming Dougan that evening. "Anyone who doubts the social progress of the modern footballer has only to switch on the Player of the Year Awards on television - without doubt, the best night on the sporting calendar."

 Hunter's crowning as the inaugural PFA winner felt instructive. Sure, Leeds won the First Division in 1973-74-Don Revie's final season before taking up the England job but the grizzled centre-back nicknamed 'Bites Yer Legs' was a world removed from smooth Liverpool midfielder Ian Callaghan, who snaffled the writers' gong. This was the players celebrating their own. Peers had never been so democratic.

"THANKS, CAN'T STAY, THE BAR'S CLOSING"