SPOTY

I don't think Jamie Vardy will be Sports' Personality of the Year. Knowing that he was not on the short list he got himself sent off today and his club Leicester City, likely to be named Sports' Team of the Year (odds on at the moment), seem to be in freefall. Both have given us great excitement and entertainment through the year and their success seems like a fairy tale now.

I met somebody this week who played with Vardy at Stocksbridge Park Steels FC, a local Evo-Stick NPL club, before he moved on and he said that Vardy "had forgotten" his mates who helped nurtured him through his early career. Shame!

I am also listening to Stoke v Leicester City as I write this and the Foxes were in the dumps again, but have pulled back to 2-2 against the Potters, a result seemingly impossible a short while ago. perhaps Leicester are on a revival. Is it enough to win the hearts of the voting public?

Footballers do not often get the accolade of SPOTY voters, possibly because football is such a controversial sport, often unloved.

As Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouts' movement observed (read yesterday's post), Football....."is a vicious game when it draws crowds of lads away from playing the game themselves to be merely onlookers at a few paid performers, boys and young men, pale, narrow chested, hunched up, miserable specimens, smoking endless cigarettes, betting, all of them learning to be hysterical as they groan and cheer in panic unison with their neighbours..."

So since 1954, when the very educated Chris Chataway became the first winner of the BBC poll,
the following footballers have been voted top of the pops; Bobby Moore (1966), Paul Gascoigne (1990), Michael Owen (1998), David Beckham (2001) and Ryan Giggs (2009). 5 in 61 years. Much reflects success in the sport and you can understand why in 1966 Bobby Moore got the nod-national pride. Explaining the other football winners needs some thought.

Who is that with Mooro?

Tomorrow-Team Winners!