Sports Personality Of The Year -- Part I

Put December 19 in your diary as this is the day you can fill your stockings on the back of the annual whitewash which is the Sports Personality of the Year Awards.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has televised this event and organised both the nomination of the main protagonists and the public voting since 1954.

On the exterior the BBC is one of the last great bastions of an imperial nation, standing for all that is good and great. It declares its mission “is to inform, educate and entertain” with six public purposes: Sustaining citizenship and civil society; promoting education and learning; stimulating creativity and cultural excellence; representing the UK, its nations, religions and communities; bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK.

Of course it is a load of old tosh. The world’s leading pastime, poker, has never been seen on a BBC screen and I believe it falls into at least a few of the above criteria.

Similarly there is no fair and equal representation amongst the Sports Personality of the Year Award show which explains why horseracing has only received a short pre-recorded highlights piece during the broadcast of the show in recent years.

Conversely, in 2008 say, cycling received an inordinate amount of coverage with an artificial racing surface, starting ramps and space-aged bikes all rolled out before the live studio audience boosting ultimate winner, Chris Hoy’s, prospects of collecting the award.

With 2010 not being an Olympic year ⎯ a Gold medal wining Olympian also won the SPoY award in 2004 & 2000 ⎯ it would appear unlikely that another bike track or a couple of thousand gallons of water in a makeshift lake will be brought into the studios.

During a year featuring few notable sporting achievements on a world stage the one big question is the true prospect of 15-time Champion Jockey Tony McCoy winning the prestigious award which he jumped to the head of the betting for in April when landing the Grand National on Don’t Push It.

I declare very little and he rates a massive lay at his current odds of even-money.

Don’t get me wrong I like the fella a lot. I lived on the periphery of Toby Balding’s stables when a young McCoy was riding for him as the yard’s 7lb claimer in the early 90s. Just last month I found myself alongside the 36-year-old Northern Irishman on a flight into Heathrow where he was kind enough to give me a full insight into the career of this year’s Champion Hurdle winner ⎯ and the 2011 Champion Hurdle winner I hasten to add ⎯ Binocular.

McCoy should win the Award, he deserves to win it but romanticising about a sport which you are passionate is not the way to win money only lose it.

Undoubtedly, if the BBC wanted they could certainly sway the viewing audience.

Back in 1977, when Red Rum won the last of his three Grand National’s, they brought the great horse into the studios but, being practical, it will never happen again. They are, after all, cutting back on their horseracing coverage dramatically and it is no secret that those in power at the BBC would do away with it altogether given the chance.

In fairytale circumstances, back in 1981, Bob Champion overcame cancer to win the Grand National on Aldaniti who was himself returning from life-threatening injury.

A film was subsequently made about the story but the fact is this partnership was not put forward as potential SPoY winners.

We have to be practical, horseracing is not a mainstream sport and looking through a list of previous winners it is clear that ⎯ Olympic Gold medal winners in any sport apart ⎯ you have the best chance of winning the award if you are an athlete, an Formula 1 driver or a boxer.

Part’s II and III of this blog will appear later in the week.