YORK City Knights fans will be given the chance this year to have their say in the player-of-the-season competition run by the Evening Press.

Copmanthorpe-based firm Collier Plant Hire will again be sponsoring the competition, which this season becomes slightly more supporter interactive.

It will take a similar format to last season, but with one alteration to give supporters the chance to play their part in the awarding of points.

As last year, three points will be awarded to the Knights' man of the match in each game as deemed by the Evening Press, with two points going to the next best player and one point to the third best.

However, this year an extra point is up for grabs to the player who gets most man of the match votes from fans. This way, a consensus of opinion can positively affect the overall standings.

To cast your vote, simply send an e-mail to peter.martini@ycp.co.uk naming who you thought deserved the award most. Alternatively, send a postcard to Sportsdesk, Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York, YO1 9YN, with the name of your man of the match. All votes must be received by midnight on Thursdays.

Each voter is allowed only one e-mail (or postcard) but, if you are sometimes unsure who should get the award (I know from experience it's often a difficult decision!), you can suggest more than one player, and the player with the most votes overall gets the additional point. If there is a tie, both or all players get an additional point.

The player who tops the player-of-the-year standings at the end of the season wins £300 courtesy of sponsors Collier Plant Hire, with the runner-up receiving £150. If there is a tie at the end of the season, the player with the most man-of-the-match awards wins.

The top prize in last week's opening game of the season against Batley went to skipper Lee Jackson after an authoritative display from hooker, while Chris Langley, who scored his first competitive try for the club (see our picture above), was pipped into second place. The single Evening Press point went to stand-off Scott Rhodes, who tested the Batley defence at every opportunity.

The extra point awarded by fans was, for this week only, awarded using votes cast on the club's website messageboard before noon yesterday. Langley, Damian Ball and Danny Brough tied at the top with four votes so all three get an additional point.

The early standings, therefore, are: Jackson 3pts, Langley 3pts, Rhodes 1, Ball 1, Brough 1.

EARLY player of the year leader Chris Langley is pictured on today's back page holding the Challenge Cup - but it is not the first time he has got up close to the famous old trophy.

The 23-year-old Knights star saw it as a kid when his uncle took it to his house. ("Well, it could have been his house, I can't remember - I was only about six," he pointed out.)

Anyway, his uncle is none other than Barry Johnson, a member of the Cup-winning Castleford side of 1986. Cas beat Hull KR in that year's final.

RIGHT. It's correction time.

Although it's been taken in good heart, we feel obliged to point out a bit of misinformation regarding new Aussie recruit Simon Friend and his partner, Katrina Kiely.

It seems we may have inadvertently caused a few flutters and perhaps some frantic telephone calls to and from their family and friends back home when we printed that Simon "has a British wife so does not count on the overseas quota".

Erm, this isn't quite right. For a start, Simon and Katrina, who have been together for two-and-a-half years, are not married (and Simon isn't married to anyone else either I hasten to add).

So, for any of Simon and Katrina's folks reading this on the Internet, we apologise. You can rest assured you haven't missed anything.

Secondly, Simon does not count on the overseas quota as his mother is from England - Abingdon, near Oxford, to be exact - while Katrina's dad is Irish.

Okay, while we're on the subject of getting things straight, we would also like to point out Simon did not actually "captain Canberra Raiders reserve grade side to the premier league title down under".

He was captain at North Sydney Bears but, as for the Raiders side, he took the armband only for a few games when the regular skipper was ruled out. (They still won the competition, though.)

Glad to put the record straight.

JUDGING by the Knights' website message-board, York fans have not been too upset about the reported demotion of referee Steve Addy.

The Huddersfield whistler has been downgraded to a grade two referee, meaning he won't get to officiate at Knights matches this season.

Addy had reffed in six York games last year, including the infamous clash at Chorley when he controversially sin-binned two York players - Scott Rhodes and Scott Fletcher - and sent off team-mate Graeme Hallas as the Knights' four-game unbeaten run came to an end.

Updated: 11:03 Saturday, February 07, 2004