Goal of the month awards tend to cause disputes among fans, but nobody was complaining about Match of the Day’s winner of the December prize.
The final month of the year produced some sensational goals in the English top flight including Alexis Sanhchez’s stunner against West Ham and Jeff Hendrick’s cracker of a volley against Bournemouth. However, neither of these two efforts were good enough to claim BBC’s accolade.
In fact, it was deemed that two goals scored in the past four weeks were so stunningly beautiful that MOTD could not separate them. So the award was shared between Manchester United’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Sunderland superfan Bradley Lowery.
Mkhitaryan got the nod for his slightly offside acrobatic wondergoal against Sunderland while five-year-old Bradley’s goal came he was mascot for the Black Cats against Chelsea at the Stadium of Light.
During the warm-up, Lowery stepped up to take a penalty against Asmir Begovic. He shot the Chelsea keeper a look while taking his run-up which sent the Bosnian diving to the right. He then coolly slotted the ball into the bottom right hand corner.
WATCH: @Bradleysfight takes penalties at Sunderland. What a brave boy he is. Send him a card & make his Christmas. https://t.co/yhEL8ndq19
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) December 14, 2016
Bradley was diagnosed with cancer in 2013 and last year more than £700,000 was raised to pay for treatment, including a donation of £200,000 from Everton. Before Christmas, his family was told his neuroblastoma had grown and could not be beaten.
Bradley’s mum, Gemma, revealed on Twitter that Bradley had seen Match of the Day awarding his effort the goal of the month. Her description of how happy this made him proves they made the correct decision.
Brad just woke up and watched #MOTD2 and found out he got #goalofthemonth he is over the moon thank you @BBCMOTD thank you @SunderlandAFC
— Bradley Lowery Foundation (@Bradleysfight) January 2, 2017
Bradley was somewhat of a surprise winner as his goal was not listed among the eight contenders for the public vote. However, fans universally agreed that there was no one more deserving of th prize.
https://twitter.com/supernwa/status/815709217382350848
https://twitter.com/UtdCharliee/status/815708908631261185
Awesome from #MOTD2 to give this little lad joint goal of the month #bradleylowery #bradleysfight pic.twitter.com/dORllw5NJY
— Jack (@jackosborn04) January 2, 2017
Brilliant from motd to have given Bradley Lowery joint goal of the month!
— A LOVE SUPREME (@ALS_Fanzine) January 2, 2017
