You can tell it’s nearly the end of the year here at Umbro HQ: the office is almost deserted, and those that are still here are knee deep in mince pies! With the seasonal spirit in the air, it’s high time that we present our favourites from the past year – when we’re not watching football, we all enjoy a good film, a good TV series, and some of us even read a book from time to time. Here’s some of our favourites from 2011…

Favourite Film

Usually the favourite film is easy to pick out, as a few big blockbusters capture everyone’s attention, like last year when Inception was a clear winner. However, 2011 has been much closer to call. While the likes of Senna, The Hangover 2 and Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes all had their fans, The Inbetweeners Movie has just pipped them all the top spot. Perhaps it’s that classic Umbro England shirt in the poster that’s made it such a favourite round here?

TV Programme

Another category with a pretty diverse set of nominations, because we all like to watch something different when we get home from work, and only one vote for a football-related programme! No one voted for The X Factor or Strictly either, so there is hope. There’s a tie for first place as well, with two big American drama series getting an equal amount of votes. Game Of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire are both popular, but I’m going to pick Game Of Thrones as the winner as that’s the one I voted for! Anyone claiming a fix will have their votes discounted…

Music

It’s hard enough for people in the same band to agree on a song sometimes, so you can imagine how difficult it is to get all of our staff to agree on anything! A whole host of albums by the likes of TV On The Radio, The Vaccines, Noel Gallagher, David Guetta, Elbow, Adele and Hard-Fi were nominated, as well as two records by bands we’ve worked with over the past 12 months: Chase & Status and Kasabian. It’s the rock and rollers that just pipped the dance titans as well, with Kasabian’s Velociraptor! grabbing the most votes.

Although both Chase & Status and Kasabian were also nominated for best song, neither won the title. That honour goes to Adele’s ‘Rolling In The Deep’, which was a clear winner.

Books

Another clear winner is in the book category, and it’s another one with a strong Umbro connection. It’s not ‘Multipliers’, a book many members of staff had to read for a management course and admitted was the only book they’d read this year, but it is I’m Not Really Here, written by former Manchester City star Paul Lake, who we interviewed yesterday (talk about good timing!) The book didn’t just receive votes from City fans either – followers of all sorts of clubs voted it into top spot.

Football

Perhaps City’s fans are better at responding to emails asking for votes for favourite footballers, perhaps he united all of us despite the different clubs we support, but there was just one winner for our football of the year. Messi ran him close, but star Spaniard David Villa won the vote outright. There were 300 votes cast for Preston and Canada striker Iain Hume, but most of these seem to have been discarded on the second count…

Football moment of the year is always a tough one – fans of one club can’t even agree on a particular goal or game. So here’s some of the best ones that were put forward by our staff, in their own words…

“David Silva’s pass for City’s 6th goal in the 6-1 win”

“Sitting behind the goal watching Wayne Rooney’s overhead kick against City”

“3rd goal by Messi in the Super Copa de Espana 2011 second leg.. 3-2 Barca”

“Derby coming from a goal down and man down after 6 minutes to beat Forest at the city ground 2-1! Clough is back in business!”

and finally….

“Yaya Toure’s FA Cup Semi Final winning goal”

Do you disagree? Let us know some of your favourites from 2011!