MA student pens award-winning essay on UK’s first asylum seeker football team
Aayush Majumdar, an International Sports Journalism master’s student at St Mary’s University, Twickenham (SMU) has won the Football Writers’ Association Student Writer of the Year Award in the Unheard Voices Category.
Aayush took first place in the category with his piece on the UK’s first asylum seeker football team to be registered with a county football association (FA), Hilltop United FC in Carlisle.
Alongside Aayush, seven sports journalism students at SMU were shortlisted for this year’s FWA Student Writer Award across three categories. They include Jonathan Coffey, Laura Howard, Emile Nuh, Jaden Dakwa, Eduardo Tansey, and Sam France.
Sam came second in the Hugh McIlvanney Award, Laura came second in the Vikki Orvice Award for female writers, while Emile was third in the Unheard Voices category.
Aayush will receive his award at the FWA Footballer of the Year dinner on May 16th, in addition to receiving a cash prize of £1000.
Speaking on his achievement, Aayush said, “It feels quite surreal. It is a very prestigious award and I’m honoured to win. I’m grateful for the support from all the lecturers at St Mary’s, from whom I’ve learned a lot. It’s also a great achievement to have so many from our course shortlisted across the three categories.”
Sports Communication and Marketing lecturer Richard Lenton added, “Aayush has been an absolute joy to teach since he came to St Mary’s. His positive attitude and work ethic are infectious, and he’s really developed his all-round skills over the course of the year. Seeing our students win awards has happily become a regular occurrence, but it’s certainly no less special, and Aayush absolutely deserves this accolade. I’m sure he’ll go on to have a wonderful career in the industry.”
You can read Aayush, Sam, Laura, and Emile’s award-winning entries by clicking this link.
St Mary’s University, Twickenham is one of the four Catholic universities in England and Wales.