SPORTS' PERSONALITY oty

14th December 2008: Sir Bobby Charlton received a lifetime achievement award at the BBC Sports' Personality of the Year Awards' ceremony. It proved to be a very emotional event since Bobby and his brother Jack – arguably the two most famous brothers in British sporting history – had for years been on poor terms with Bobby, having been controversially critical of his brother in their respective autobiographies.  

At the awards' ceremony, held at the Liverpool Echo Arena, Bobby’s award was presented to him by Jack, who said of his younger brother, ‘Bobby Charlton is the greatest player I’ve ever seen – and he’s my brother.’ 

They embraced, the feud was over and they seemed to be as close as they were 42 years earlier on that special day in July 1966. And here is Geoff Hurst helping celebrate the coming together.

In 1935, on the same day, nearly 61,000 at Villa Park, saw Aston Villa lose 1-7 to Arsenal, whose goals were scored by one man; Ted Drake. His seven goals came from just eight shots - the other hit the woodwork. Aston Villa also conceded 7 League goals at home to Middlesbrough and WBA - their 2-7 home defeat against Middlesbrough coming just 5 days after Villa had won 2-1 at Ayresome Park. Arsenal finished 6th in the First Division, Villa came 21st and were relegated.  

17th in the Division, was Grimsby Town. Now what's this all about? I happened to see a Grimsby Town badge on a casual tee-shirt in the gym this morning. The chap sporting the badge and I had a chat and then we both realised (he before me!) that we had had this same conversation about the badge a month or two ago! Nice to talk though! Some might consider me "boring".....but there's more...Grimsby once boasted the WORLD's largest fishing fleetand still holds the UK's biggest fish auction. The present badge was redesigned at the time of the club's centenary in 1978-9.

 If you happened to be a Boreham Wood (presently 2nd in the National League) footballer/supporter, you would be travelling to Grimsby Town FC (8th) for your next League match on December 21st, a 7.45pm ko. A long way for a game of footy at that level. Grimsby's latest home attendance was on Saturday v Chesterfield, a 0-1 defeat, watched by 6,504.