Sheffield United Women: end of season awards

We give out our prizes at the culmination of a successful season for SUFCW

May 31, 2024

A season of ups and downs in the Barclays Championship saw Sheffield United Women secure safety in comfortable fashion – and even look likely for a top-half finish as we entered the last leg. A best points total since 2020/21 was superb reward for a first season as a pro outfit, so to celebrate this season, let’s hand out some awards to some very deserving players.

Offensive Player Of The Season: Izzy Goodwin

No change in winner from my half-season awards – and is it much of a surprise? Izzy Goodwin has been an offensive juggernaut in her first full Championship year. It defies belief that the 23/24 season was Izzy’s first season in pro football because she took to the league like a duck to water. Come the end of the campaign, Izzy finished with 15 goals and two assists in 19 appearances. Those 17 goal contributions in 19 games (bagging a league goal every 105 minutes) doesn’t even cover her hat trick against former club Rugby Borough in the WFA Cup. All in all, it was a super debut season for Izzy that ended with a well-deserved nomination for Championship Player of the Season.

Defensive Player Of The Season: Rachel Brown

Another player retaining their half-season award is wing-back Rachel Brown. One of our most underrated performers since coming into the team halfway through the 22/23 season, Brown has quietly but effectively gone about her work since becoming a regular in the starting lineup. A tenacious defender who seems to be in constant movement up and down the wing, Brown had stand-out performances against Watford and especially Crystal Palace, where she grabbed her first goal for the club and marked former West Ham winger Izzy Atkinson out of the game as we secured a commanding 2-0 win against the eventual league winners.

Brown has become one of the standout defenders in the division. Underrated? Not anymore.

Goal Of The Season: Jodie Hutton vs Southampton, 5th November 2023

Half Season Winner: Bex Rayner vs Charlton Athletic 27th August 2023

A first change from the half-season awards. Hutton’s strike against Southampton was actually considered for our half-season gong, and as time has gone on, the pure skill and accuracy to bend a strike into the top corner from an acute angle has just pipped Bex Rayner’s thunderbolt from the opening weekend of the season.

Hutton has been a revelation on set pieces since joining from Bristol City in the summer, and there was almost a last-gasp contender from Hutton against Palace that would definitely have secured GOTS – a late touch from Izzy Goodwin denied Hutton what would have been a first Olympic goal at the Lane since the days of corner goalscorer extraordinaire Alan Woodward.

Signing Of The Season: Fran Stenson

Since winning the half-season award, goalkeeper Stenson has completed a superb first full season in red and white following her permanent signing from Arsenal in the summer. Now a regular with England under 23s, Stenson has kept us in games with some superb individual performances, with more last-ditch saves than you can shake a stick at. She’s provided us with a dependable pair of hands between the sticks this past year and a half, and hopefully she will continue to be that dependable keeper at the Lane for a long time.

Player Of The Season: Izzy Goodwin

When we talk about great debut seasons in a league, Izzy Goodwin’s 23/24 campaign should be right up there with the best of them. A reminder: this was Goodwin’s first season of pro football. She looks like she’s been playing pro football for decades.

Goodwin is a forward who has absolutely everything, and continues the recent success of young Blades forwards – the likes of Lucy Watson and Mia Enderby – in showing so much talent in the Championship that they seem fully capable of going on to do massive things in football. I can see Goodwin doing exactly that – but hopefully she’ll be in a Blades shirt for a lot longer yet.