The Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year (often called the FWA Footballer of the Year, or in England simply the Footballer of the Year) is an annual award given to the player who is adjudged to have been the best of the season in English football. The award has been presented since the 1947–48 season, when the inaugural winner was Blackpool winger Stanley Matthews. The latest winner of the award as of 2011–12 is Robin van Persie of Arsenal. Eight players have won the award on more than one occasion, the most recent being Cristiano Ronaldo, who won his second award in the 2007–08 season. Thierry Henry has won the award on the most occasions, having won three times in four seasons.
The winner is selected by a vote amongst the members of the Football Writers' Association (FWA), which comprises around 400 football journalists based throughout England. The award was instigated at the suggestion of Charles Buchan, a former professional footballer turned journalist and one of the Association's founders.
Read more about FWA Footballer Of The Year: Winners
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“In some withdrawn, unpublic mead
Let me sigh upon a reed,
Or in the woods, with leafy din,
Whisper the still evening in:
Some still work give me to do,—
Only—be it near to you!
For I’d rather be thy child
And pupil, in the forest wild,
Than be the king of men elsewhere,
And most sovereign slave of care:
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Than share the city’s year forlorn.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)