Football Writers' Association
The choice to create the Football Writers' Association (FWA) was made on 22 September 1947 by journalists, Charles Buchan (News Chronicle), Frank Coles (Daily Telegraph), Roy Peskett (Daily Mail), and Archie Quick while aboard a boat in the middle of the English Channel that was returning from a football match in which England beat Belgium 5–2.
Ivan Sharpe of the Sunday Chronicle was appointed chairman a month later, a position he held for the first six years of the FWA's existence and eight times in all in his long career.
In recent years, the association has modernized itself by changing the voting process for Footballer of the Year by making online voting available to its members as well as incorporating social media into its revamped web site.
The Football Writers' Association continues to recruit new members openly in the same manner as was created by its founders in 1947.
[2] Charles Buchan, one of the founding fathers of the FWA, had originally suggested that there be an award presented "to the professional player who by precept and example is considered by a ballot of members to be the footballer of the year."
[6][7][9] The Football Writers' Association Tribute Award is presented annually every January at the Savoy Hotel to the individual that the committee believes to have contributed to the national game in a significant way.
