Lincoln City Man of the Match Awards 2025/26

Over the course of this season, the Stacey West has been handing out Man of the Match Awards.

We do it on our socials, usually a quick video on the way home from the game, and today, Emily has compiled those into a list. I’ve then added a second data set – the Man of the Match from each of the games, voted by you on our player rater. That gives us a massive list of players and performances to analyse and play with.

Firstly, the Player of the Season awards have seemingly been split between Sonny Bradley and Conor McGrandles. That’s been the case at the club, and it’s also the case here. In fact, the pundit’s choices of Man of the Match saw Bradley come out on top, with 30 votes from our team, while Conor McGrandles got 28.

However, when you add the match ratings to that, the Man of the Match by the fans, the numbers switch, and McGrandles moves onto 40, while Bradley is on 36. What that basically says is both were ace. Supporters especially leaned towards McGrandles. He topped the fan vote 12 times during the season, compared to eight for Jack Moylan and six for Bradley.

The numbers suggest fans consistently valued the midfielder’s ability to control games and provide the platform on which others could thrive.

Rare Moments Of Complete Agreement

One of the more interesting findings from the data was how rarely complete agreement occurred. Across the entire season, there were only six unanimous votes between the panel and supporters.

Those matches were:

• Burton Albion (A): Bradley
• Wycombe Wanderers (A): Moylan
• Stockport County (A): Reeco Hackett
• Luton Town (A): Freddie Draper
• Burton Albion (H): Moylan
• Bradford City (H): Draper

That lack of unanimity actually says a lot about the balance within the squad. Different people often valued different performances, whether it was defensive work, creativity, leadership or attacking output. However, when consensus did happen, it usually followed genuinely dominant individual displays.

Draper is perhaps the most interesting example. He received 17 selections overall, fewer than several teammates, but when he won votes, he tended to sweep the board completely. Both the away win at Luton and the home victory against Bradford produced unanimous support.

Consistency Matters

Bradley’s numbers perhaps best demonstrate the value of consistency. While he did not dominate the fan vote in the same way as McGrandles, his name appears repeatedly across virtually every section of the panel voting.

Home game, away game, difficult opposition or routine victory, Bradley continued collecting recognition throughout the campaign. That consistency reflects the influence he had at the heart of a side that ultimately secured promotion with remarkable authority.

How Did The SW Team Vote?

The pundit data produced an interesting subplot – it does seem there is a certain trend towards who gets picked.

Ben aligned with the fan vote more than any other panel member, matching supporter selections 22 times from 47 valid votes, around 47 per cent overall. Chris followed at roughly 44 per cent, while Gaz recorded around 39 per cent. Emily and Charlie both sat around the 35 per cent mark. Statistically, Ben’s selections were closest to supporter opinion over the course of the season.

The individual voting patterns also revealed clear personal preferences among the panel. Gary selected Conor McGrandles more than any other player, backing the midfielder eight times across the campaign, while Chris mirrored that exact total with eight McGrandles selections of his own. Ben consistently favoured Sonny Bradley, naming the defender eight times, while Charlie went even further, choosing Bradley on nine occasions, the highest repeated selection by any pundit for a single player. Emily’s voting stood out slightly differently, with Tendayi Darikwa receiving six selections, more than any other player from her across the season.

The numbers also revealed some clear personality traits within the panel itself. Gaz was officially the biggest football hipster, making 18 unique player of the match selections across the season, comfortably the highest total among the group and a reflection of a willingness to spot performances others perhaps overlooked. Chris, meanwhile, emerged as the least contrarian voter and the panel member most closely aligned with the overall consensus, regularly backing the same standout performers recognised by the wider group.

Chris and Charlie were actually the most different pair on the panel overall.

When both submitted a vote, they disagreed 24 times from 34 comparable matches, a disagreement rate of just over 70 per cent. That is marginally higher than Gaz and Emily, who disagreed around 70 per cent of the time as well.

What makes that interesting is that Charlie heavily favoured Sonny Bradley and often leaned towards dominant, obvious match-winning performances, while Chris tended to align more closely with the broader consensus and repeatedly backed Conor McGrandles or other control-based performances.

At the other end of the scale, Ben and Charlie were the most aligned pair statistically, disagreeing only 22 times from 40 comparable selections, meaning they agreed nearly half the time.

Conclusion

One final trend also emerged from the data. Home matches generally produced far more varied voting, while away fixtures often created stronger consensus among both pundits and supporters.

Either way, the numbers reinforce what many supporters likely already suspected. Lincoln’s title-winning campaign was powered by a strong spine, with McGrandles and Bradley at the centre of almost everything good the side produced.