Having your say in York City Knights player of month poll (From York Press)

Having your say in York City Knights player of month poll

10:50am Saturday 3rd March 2012 in Diary By Peter Martini, peter.martini@thepress.co.uk

THE gongs are back. The Press is launching its Knights Player of the Year and Player of the Month accolades ahead of next week’s Championship kick-off – and this year there is a new technological twist to help supporters get involved.

Some eager readers have already emailed their Player of the Month votes for February and, because of the interest already, we’ve decided to keep the same format this year for both award competitions.

That means fans decide who is The Press Player of the Month and therefore have a say in who wins The Press Player of the Year gong.

Additionally, fans can now make their voices heard over The Press man-of-the-match award via email and Twitter.

Basically, as in previous years, whoever is deemed the man of the match in each game by The Press gets three points for their Player of the Year tally. Our second-best and third-best players on the day receive two points and one point respectively.

Additionally, whoever tops the readers’ Player of the Month poll gets three bonus points.

To vote, email peter.martini@thepress.co.uk or vote here.

This season, fans can also influence The Press’ man-of-the-match award by emailing sport@thepress.co.uk or tweeting their choices to @PeterFMartini immediately after each match, with a quick explanation why. Please remember, print deadlines are tight so emails and tweets must be sent quickly.

If it proves popular, we may print some of the best emails or tweets in the Knights’ column on Saturdays.

The deadline for Player of the Month votes is generally noon on the Wednesday after the last game in each month.

For February, we’ll extend the deadline to noon this coming Wednesday.

The early leader in the Player of the Year standings was Tom Bush.

He was our second-best player against Swinton (2pts) and Gateshead (2). The top performers those days, as deemed by The Press, were Chris Thorman (3) and Paul King (3) respectively, with Matt Garside (3) getting top marks in the opener at Doncaster.

Ben Hellewell (2) and James Ford (1) took the other points against the Dons, with Jack Lee (1) and Rhys Clarke (1) our third-best players against Swinton and Gateshead respectively.

The player picking up points last night were Jack Aldous (3), Jack Lee (2) and Rhys Clarke (1).

The Press Player of the Year standings: Tom Bush 4pts, Aldous 3, King 3, Thorman 3, Garside 3, Lee 3, Hellewell 2, Clarke 2, Ford 1.