Last week Perth Glory FC held their annual awards night in which they present the club’s highest honour - the Most Glorious Player trophy - to the season’s best player. This trophy has been held by some of the club’s - and Australia’s - best players since 1996/97. Names like Hay, Miller, Naven, and Colosimo are among the most respected in the business. Some players have been awarded it for their courage and sheer guts, like the Adriano Pellegrino of 08/09 (where’s he gone to?) and some have won it for their impact and commitment, like Andy Todd last year. Then there are those that have won it simply because they are among the best players ever to be seen on these shores - step forward Johnny Warren Medal winner and 4-time MGP, Bobby Despotovski. Apparently, it has also been won by Nikolai Topor-Stanley...
Anyway. The time has come this year to add another name to the list of Glory greats inscribed on that trophy. Will it be for courage? Will it be for leadership? Will it be for sublime footballing skill? Will they be a rising star of the Australian game?
Well, kick me in the chest and break my bloody legs - it’s Jacob Burns.
Now I’m not a “anit-Jacob” kind of guy, and while I don’t understand his popularity amongst the subculture of somewhat-depressed-looking teenage girls wearing “TEAM JACOB” tops, he was a pretty damn consistent player for us last year, and probably quite worthy of the second place he achieved behind Andy Todd in the MGP. He did an excellent job of screening the defence, he played simple passes without trying to be too fancy, and while he did make the odd mistake he grew into the captain’s role pretty well by the end of the season.
This year though, he has been nowhere near his best. The red mist has overtaken him on more than one occasion, and his defensive screening has looked patchy at best. His lack of run and mobility has been exploited by quicker oppositions, his passing has been atrocious, and his leadership has been... well, poor. If a team is supposed to follow its leader, it is no surprise to see that Burns has been well below his best.
Take his discipline, for example. Burns has lost his cool during matches on more than one occasion. In fact, he’s done so on ten different occasions - picking up nine yellows and one red card - only one behind Wayne Srhoj in terms of cards collected. Even then, Srhoj just picked up yellows whereas Burns was dismissed with a red. Add in all the other times when poor officials have missed bad challenges or a loss of composure, and Burns has the claim to being the least disciplined player in the league. Last time I checked, that wasn’t one of the attributes of a good leader - nor is it something fans want to see in an MGP winner. Can you imagine someone like Tiatto or ‘Pants’ winning the Johnny Warren Medal after a typically psychotic and thuggish season?
Of course not. There’d be an uproar - unless of course the winner was Kevin Muscat and he bought beers to silence the critics. There will be no beer from Jacob, though. Especially when I point out that behind his old midfield partner Srhoj he is the second most likely player to foul you in the league. He was pulled up for 67 different fouls; more than the Glory’s next two biggest liabilities Jamie Coyne (33) and Adriano Pellegrino (32) put together!
Now you might be thinking, “Jeez Dave I don’t think Burns is deserving of the MGP either, but when you think about it he’s played pretty much all the games and will always be there to pick up one or two votes. I’m not surprised that was enough for him to scrape through”. Sounds reasonable enough, but here’s the rub - Burns’ discipline meant that he only took part in 24 games. In the Perth squad, five players - Tando Velaphi, Steve McGarry, Todd Howarth, Robbie Fowler, and Scott Neville - have had more game time than their captain. What’s more, when you look at the tallying of the votes on the night, you see something quite remarkable:
1. Jacob Burns 28 votes
2. Tando Velaphi 20 votes
3. Scott Neville 16 votes
4. Steven McGarry 15 votes
5. Robbie Fowler 14 votes
That’s right; not only did practically all the players I mentioned above make it to the top five, but Jacob Burns won by eight votes. Eight freakin’ votes! That’s pretty much a landslide victory. He was an entire twelve votes ahead of the person many fans had picked to win the award, Scott Neville - a young man who has shown leadership, maturity, discipline, and skill beyond his youthful years. This lunacy was only compounded when Neville was awarded Players’ Player of the Year, Supporters’ Player of the Year, and the Best Clubman gongs.
Here then, we have a massive disconnect. A player recognised by the players and the fans as the standout player - and club ambassador - of the year is beaten by twelve votes by a man who has essentially led only through kicks to the shins and ankles of his opponents. Again, that’s not an attack on Jacob - that’s simply what statistics and my own viewing of the team this season has shown.
And who, you might ask, is in charge of the MGP voting? Well, that would be the coach - or this season - two coaches. David Mitchell and Ian Ferguson, who shared the duties this year, award the votes on a 3-2-1 basis after every match. The fact that their winner was so far away from everybody else’s just shows how detached they are from the footballing reality at Perth Glory.
Readers at the Sunday Times website couldn’t withhold their reactions;
“what was the criteria? worst tackler? best at receiving unnecessary bookings? being a captain with an appalling disciplinary record leading a team to a shameful season of losses and waaaaay too many bookings and suspensions? this is the reason why australia will not be a serious footballing nation for decades.”
“Ridiculous decision...”
“Burns spent most of his time getting booked or missing matches”
“What a joke! Just goes to show you the amount of "talent" at the club when this hack takes out the top prize & Flappy getting runner-up. I'm a sucker for renewing my membership every year, but after being reminded as to who still has a contract for next season at the club, i'm definately holding on to my hard earned... Such a great club has turned to crap! Thanks Mitchell, Ferguson & co.”
“If he is the most glorious player and then it tells the standard of Perth Glory. Next season won't be any different.”
The anger and indignation was no less intense at Perth’s fan forum Gloryboys.net, or indeed at this very website. The crux of the matter is simple - it is not so much that Burns is a terrible player, but that there were clearly more deserving players than he. His leadership and discipline faltered all year, and when you line him up against the likes of Bobby, Scotty, and Danny - he just simply doesn’t measure up. Not even to the Jacob Burns of last year.
It is a damning indictment on the mindset and preferred tactics of David Mitchell and Ian Ferguson that a ill-disciplined, under-performing defensive midfielder who has not led by example this season should be not only a winner of the MGP, but such a clear one at that. The fact that their priorities and values seem to lie in grafting players of little creativity or skill who tackle hard - be it the man or the ball - and ‘bust a gut’ without actually achieving a great many things says everything about this season and where the club is currently heading.
A mass exodus may well now be underway at the club, but Burns is staying put and raising his voice as to why he should be captain next year. Our creative players remain unselected, deported to Indonesia, or injured - and when I recently asked on Gloryboys.net, few fans could name me three Perth players who they thought were “creative or skillful”. It really does not bode well for the club that such - dare I say it, archaic and “British” footballing traits are being fostered at a time when Brisbane Roar and Adelaide United are showing that the game, even in Australia, has moved on past that era of history.
Ferguson has been given the green light to operate next year with a squad of his choosing (no doubt with the help of his technical director, Mitchell) and even if significant changes are made to bring in proven strikers like Shane Smeltz, I fear that with the “graft” value that seems to guide him in his decision-making and tactics, Perth are still going to be a long way away from where fans want them to be.
