Sports Personality of the Year shows up the game of football

Monday, 15 December 08, 03:47 PM · Comments(1)

It's a bit of a ritual watching the Sports Personality of the Year show. It's been getting gradually worse over the years and the BBC try ever more wearisome ideas to "modernise" or bring it to the licence payer (hence the setting in a arena in Liverpool). However, I always watch it (on & off and generally it's been Sky+ed or equivalent so I can miss the truly gruesome bits). This year, a year that was generally agreed to be one of the best years of British sport, what was most obvious was the general lack of discussion or celebration of our wonderful game of football. Aside from a truly generous and sincere standing ovation for Sir Bobby Charloton and a few token nods towards coaches and teams, the game was rightly ignored.

You see the people who were celebrated last night were the people who aren't on the back pages every day of the year (or front pages for drinking, drugs or sex) like many of our pampered footballers. As a bit of a cycling fan I was so pleased to see people like Chris Hoy get justifiable reward for his sacrifice and effort in a tough sport. It wasn't just because of their sporting achievements but the general feeling that many of them were like you and I and didn't feel themselves to be better than you and I. It's a generalistion that is probably unfair on some footballers of today but it would be nice to think that the credit crunch could just hang around long enough to see the hyped up game get dragged down a notch or two....

p.s. Sorry no Arse comment today but I needed to get that off my chest.

p.p.s. Meanwhile here in Switzerland, Basel are in freefall, losing 5-1 to the bottom of the table side yesterday!!!

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