AS A GOALKEEPER, I find myself somewhat conflicted with the hoo-hah around Mary Earps being named as the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY). As an old goalkeeper myself, I am absolutely delighted that one of us has won this award, however, quite honestly I don't think Ms Earps, easily the best goalkeeper on Manchester United's books, deserved to win it.
That she did collect the famous trophy was, I feel, largely down to what I have long called “The Sex Olympics Effect.” (SOE)
[for irregular readers: I have long held we are now living for real, the premise of the 1960s television play The Year of the Sex Olympics, which suggests, we are in an age where the media is run by one sect of people, whose job is to keep the lower, unwashed classes, happy and subservient, thus allowing the upper classes to run things as they choose.]
The BBC are a key element in properly delivering SOE, so they decide, in the case of the annual quest for SPOTY, which of the short-listed contenders will get special treatment, and this year – that meant Mary Earps.
Consider this, which television channel has the rights to the sport which produced each of the contenders:
Stuart Broad : Cricket : Sky
Frankie Dettori : Horse Racing : Channel 4
Mary Earps : Women's Football : BBC
Alfie Hewitt : Tennis : Eurosport
Katrina Johnson-Thompson : Athletics : Eurosport
Rory McIlroy : Golf : Sky
So, given Ms Earps was the only one from a sport in which the BBC was the main supplier of content to the masses, they were always going to push her case a bit more than the others.
While, in the end, England's women lost in the final, the way the BBC hyped-up their performance, well, I am sure a lot of the less than fanatical in the great viewing public probably think they won the tournament anyway.
So, Ms Earps definitely had a lot of help from the organisers and, in the end, they persuaded enough of the public to vote for her to get her over the line.
For my part, I'd have gone for KJT. The number of injuries and set-backs that young lady has had to overcome, to win her World Championship, was truly inspiring and I was delighted to see her triumph in an event in which Team GB has a wonderful record. Every time she steps into the arena, she is not only competing against her equally-talented and driven opponents, but also the ghosts of such as Mary Rand, Mary Peters, Denise Lewis and Jessica Ennis, her distinguished predecessors as great British exponents of multi-event athletics for women.
Mind you, after he beat the supposedly unbeatable Jakob Ingebrigtsen to win the World 1500 metres title, oor ain Josh Kerr should have won it. But, it's the BBC wot runs it, so, in the current political climate, you cannot have “A Sweatie” winning the thing, next thing you know they'll be wanting Independence.
And speaking of ignoring Scots – and yes, I noticed they did give Kenny a richly-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award – no mention, other than by Alfie Hewitt himself, of wheelchair tennis star Gordon Reid.
Hewitt got on the short-list because of his successes in Grand Slam events, where he won two. He also won another three, in partnership with Reid, who the BBC managed to whitewash out of the programme.
BACK TO “Football”. I seldom watch English football, I find their obsession with passing and possession annoying, but, on Saturday at lunch-time I decided to watch West Ham United v Manchester United.
It must be terrible for the current Man U players. They are judged against some of the greatest players even in European football. That said, if Rangers and Celtic currently are giving game time to several players who are simply not of the class expected of their club, how much worse is it at Old Trafford, where there is nobody in the current squad who is remotely close to consideration for even the third team in any Greatest Manchester United XI selection?
They actually look better passing the ball back than forward and Manager ten Hag must be a coaching genius, the way he has turned Marcus Rashford into a less than average striker.
While I am at it, why don't they get André Onana to self-identify as a woman, that way they could switch him to their Women's team and allow Mary Earps to play in-goal for the Men's team, she'd be a safer bet. Although, to be fair, Onana showed great skill to control a fired back pass from Johnny Evans and get the ball away in the second half against the Hammers.
Great win, however, for the much-maligned David Moyes. He has put together a more than useful squad at the London Stadium.
WE SCOTS like to think of ourselves as the most-passionate of football fans. Queen's Park, back in the 1870s, may have given the game form and substance when they invented pass and run, but, these “men with the educated feet” have turned out to be prophets without honour in their own land – if Graeme Souness, himself perhaps more a discus or javelin chap is to be believed, we have in the 150 or so years since, developed a preference for hammer throwers in our teams.
Given how Scots played a huge role in taming and developing nations as diverse as Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the United State of America, the Scot's role in promoting football across the globe, particularly in South America, it is perhaps strange that our better players have tended to lift their ambitious gaze no further than England in seeking to broaden their horizons.
Sure, the High Road to England has long been a welcoming path to us Scots, and yes, we have had the occasional player go further afield, to Europe – Denis Law, Souness, Joe Jordan, Murdo MacLeod, Alan McInally, Mark McGhee, Paul Lambert, to name but a few, but, our players ave somehow preferred to conduct their daily business in English.
So, it was good to read over the weekend that Lewis Ferguson had surpassed Denis Law's record and become the highest-scoring Scotsman in Italian football (although, he has a bit to go to beat Rose Reilly's outright A Scottish Footballer In Italy's Absolute Scoring Record.) Something special again is the Stewarton Superstar.
Ferguson has also been wearing the Bologna Captain's Arm-band of late, and his Italian team is now up to fourth in Serie A. The potential cost of repatriating him to succeed to the Ferguson family's Ibrox estate – the dream of more than a few Rangers' fans - is getting more-expensive by the week.
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