CRF’s Best Fan of the Year Contest finally came to an end on Friday, April 3, 2009. My joy and excitement was no less than great as the competition proved to be a success. 705 votes other than my two were casted in all in a space of 31 days, with 14 votes out of the 705 coming in the last 24 hours of the competition.

Adrian emerged as the anticipated runaway winner days before the final, with more than one hundred votes separating him from his nearest challenger Dia. Only a massive turn around for the rest of the contenders might have seen Adrian drop from his first place. The 15-year-old Romanian boy was my favorite; at a point though, I’d almost drop him as my first choice. But after a quick meeting with my brother LiL Boss – also Wayne Rooney’s power-fan writer – I finally decided to stamp Adrian as my preferred first spot winner.

Now in the final hours of the competition, it looked like the second spot could go to anyone else – with Enxhi pushing her campaign to the wire, especially.

It was down to me, J’Lah, to cast my two votes; and this didn’t prove easy at all…

I personally think that all four contenders were almost equally good enough – so picking up two favorites out of the remaining four gave me a sort of headache. Most importantly, I didn’t really want to act under any pressure or emotion; it was all about given out my automatic points to those who really deserve them.

Adrian and Dia were poised to become my two favorites on merit; their excellent comments and regular appearance on CRF arguably lifted them above the rest. However, I also had a lot of feelings for everyday-commentator Getoar Gashi and enthusiastic Enxhi. It just seemed like they both wanted it more in a way or another.

Looking at the last results before the poll closed, I realized it was over for Enxhi and Geti to clinch at least the second spot. Dia had deservedly held on to it. I could have opted to give my 30 automatic points to the 18-year-old American sensation but to see an overwhelming gap between the already-top-two and the rest was kind of heartbreaking.

At the end, Enxhi’s anxiety just before the final moment pushed me to give her my second-choice vote…

Anyway, I can say that I had a real headache choosing my top two and a lot of sympathy for Enxhi and Getoar who failed to win anything out of the contest.

But here, I can say that the fraternity that stood amongst all the contenders made it possible for us to have a peaceful competition – free from jealousy or anything of this kind.

Let me state once again how proud I am of Adrian, Diana, Enxhi, Getoar and even Ulrik for behaving in the right way and for spicing up the contest with a lot of enthusiasm!

In the end, you are all champions!

Written by: Angela Asante