Well hello there. I promise this is my final blog of the year. You might remember back in October in line with the 26th Anniversary celebrations I invited you all to vote, in Eurovision style, for your favourite CM9798 players. Well, the votes have been counted and today I can give you the results. To build suspense, it’s a top 10 countdown.

10th – Graeme Tomlinson (111 points)

Scraping into the top 10 by just 3 points (Denilson, of all people, was 11th), it’s budget forward option Graeme Tomlinson. Will do a job for most teams and has on many occasions on this very blog.

9th – Japhet N’Doram (123 points)

Helped by having an awesome regen, Japhet N’Doram is 9th. The only player from Chad in the database.

8th – Marc Emmers (126 points)

I won’t bore you with the story about Marc Emmers in the original database but another great budget option has appealed to enough of you to secure his place in the top 10.

7th – Erik Nevland (134 points)

Patience is a virtue with the Nev, if you can just wait the months needed for Man Utd to give up on him you get a striker for life for very little outlay. 7th is about right, no doubt helped by his often appearance as a free transfer pre-patch.

6th – Arnor Gudjohnsen (191 points)

There’s a considerable leap in the points as we get into the top 6. Let me tell you, this man took the most sorting out in the votes, poor lad was spelled at least 5 different ways.

5th – Ronaldo (214 points)

On ability, the best player in the game is fifth in your votes. I’ll always back Ronaldo as one of the most iconic players of this era, he seemed almost mythical at times and I couldn’t want to manage him in 97/98 having spent most of 96/97 trying to find a cheat way to buy him.

4th – Ibrahima Bakayoko (232 points)

The top 4 in this vote was in many ways quite predictable but the order they would finish in was less guessable. Bakayoko just misses out on a medal position, and by just I mean by well over 30 points. Still a legend to me.

3rd – Tommy Svindal Larsen (267 points)

Another of the people’s champions, Tommy Svindal Larsen takes third place. A great player to sign and I’m sure one day we’ll manage to tempt him on for an interview but for now, it’s a bronze medal and a heartywell done.

2nd – John Curtis (273 points)

Just pipping TSL into second place is John Curtis. A centre back who will never let you down. Definitely my go to centre back in just about every save I’ve been able to sign him in, a very worthy second place. A mile behind our overwhelming champion though…

1st – Bjorn Heidenstrom (337 points)

It’s gold for Bjorn! A fantastic player and an even better man, Bjorn Heidenstrom takes home your favourite player award. Richly deserved, make sure you follow Bjorn on Twitter (X) and remind him what a legend he is.

You can hear from our winner here

For those who care, some statistics:

The Blog writers did a vote last year and Bjorn won that too. Tommy was only 23rd in that so is clearly enjoyed more by the wider community than the blog squad. Robert Page was 4th in that vote but only 16th here. You can look more at last year here.

13 people gave Bjorn their 12 points. Curtis and Tommy had 6 each. Somebody gave Gary Mabbutt their 12 though…although bizarrely Christophe Robert got 12 twice.

308 players were given at least one vote.

Somebody gave all their votes to Lee Chapman.

With that, I will sign off for another year. Thank you all for reading throughout the last 12 months and I will be back after a short break.