SPOTY 2015 & 2016

steven · Tennis legend

RE: SPOTY 2015

Oakland2002 · All-time great

I too was a tiny bit gutted for Leon, who undoubtedly has done an immense amount to insure we had the strongest Davis cup team at all times, every player was onside and commited but Andys contribution in all respects was huge. It was a fantastic achievement which Leon captained and facilitated over five years and SPOTY recognised that with the other awards.

What Michael ONeil did however was truely remarkable, and he has done before with the mighty Shamrock Rovers romping through Europe! Relative glory but still the real deal interns if capacity to coach.

I don't think even your casual sports fan would be able to name a single player in the NI squad! We are not talking no Gareth Bales but not even a Norman Whiteside. If you were to name their best player must would think he was an ex snooker player whose personality makes a wet weekend in Worthing feel like a mighty mini break in Marbella!

indiana · Tennis legend

Andy was the pretty clear winner, though the rugby league community do indeed appear to have come out in big numbers to vote for Sinfield. Interestingly Fury wasn't far off being third, though I imagine that Jess would have picked up much of the Farah and Rutherford vote if they weren't on the shortlist.

1. Andy Murray (361,446)
2. Kevin Sinfield (278,353)
3. Jessica Ennis-Hill (79,898)
4. Tyson Fury (72,330)
5. Lewis Hamilton (48,379)
6. Chris Froome (39,007)
7. Mo Farah (31,311)
8.Max Whitlock (25,952)
9.Greg Rutherford (23,492)
10. Lizzie Armitstead (22,356)
11. Adam Peaty (13,738)
12. Lucy Bronze (13,236)

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 21st of December 2015 03:42:50 PM

BeefyDeedz · Pro player

I thought that the event was pretty good. Certainly silenced a lot of the complainants who were ready to take to the license fee once more. Highlights were of course Andy's win (proving his general UK popularity, aside from a vocal minority), alongside the TOTY award for the GB Davis Cup team. A personal highlight was Jess Ennis-Hill coming ahead of Tyson Fury, quite poetic.

It's really time for the BBC to change the outdated name to avoid the annual arguments about 'personality'. Just keep the acronym somehow or call it what it is: a competition for the best British sportsperson with regard to achievements, with no real reference to personality. Nobody actually seems to refer to people as 'personalities' anymore.

indiana · Tennis legend

BeefyDeedz wrote:
I thought that the event was pretty good. Certainly silenced a lot of the complainants who were ready to take to the license fee once more. Highlights were of course Andy's win (proving his general UK popularity, aside from a vocal minority), alongside the TOTY award for the GB Davis Cup team. A personal highlight was Jess Ennis-Hill coming ahead of Tyson Fury, quite poetic.

It's really time for the BBC to change the outdated name to avoid the annual arguments about 'personality'. Just keep the acronym somehow or call it what it is: a competition for the best British sportsperson with regard to achievements, with no real reference to personality. Nobody actually seems to refer to people as 'personalities' anymore.

The thing is neither is it purely an "achievement" award. As said in the wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Sports_Personality_of_the_Year it's : Awarded to the sportsperson whose actions have most captured the public imagination". I believe the part in quotes basically comes from the BBC themselves to try and clarify things.

That wording I think does fit quite generally with why folk vote, which will be for a mixture of reasons including achievement, but not, as is often very clear, purely achievement. It's a sort of think 2015 - who's your particular sports star ?

And to me that is a Sports Personality. Too many folk year after year get far too focussed with one narrow definition of "personality", focusing on the individual's general personality rather than their broad sporing impact and coming out with "but they're boring" stuff re winners and top placers even if they've been a big focal point in the sporting year.

Given that, I accept "Sports Personality" causes problems for some, but it is clearly to me not just voting for "Sports Achiever", even if the final winner may at times appear to fit that bill. So "Sports Achiever" doesn't work for me and I currently can't think of better than "Sports Personality".

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 21st of December 2015 04:17:04 PM

philwrig · Hall of fame

indiana wrote:
Andy was the pretty clear winner, though the rugby league community do indeed appear to have come out in big numbers to vote for Sinfield. Interestingly Fury wasn't far off being third, though I imagine that Jess would have picked up much of the Farah and Rutherford vote if they weren't on the shortlist.

1. Andy Murray (361,446)
2. Kevin Sinfield (278,353)
3. Jessica Ennis-Hill (79,898)
4. Tyson Fury (72,330)
5. Lewis Hamilton (48,379)
6. Chris Froome (39,007)
7. Mo Farah (31,311)
8.Max Whitlock (25,952)
9.Greg Rutherford (23,492)
10. Lizzie Armitstead (22,356)
11. Adam Peaty (13,738)
12. Lucy Bronze (13,236)

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 21st of December 2015 03:42:50 PM

I can validate the Rugby League community vote for 'Sir Kev', one of my neighbours a massive Rhinos fan was also intending to vote at least 20 times if he could physically manage it. Alot of union fans were also intending to vote for him.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Bob in Spain wrote:
Oakland2002 wrote:
Great show all round, Michael O'Neil thoroughly deserved his manager of the year award given the raw material he has to work with and his track record of over achievement as a manager is pretty consistent.

Team of the year nice to see everyone get rewarded for what has been a 5 year commitment by all of our male professional players good enough to make a living playing tennis.

Andy throughly deserved, his final sentence said it all. Obviously a bit of talent helps but taking that as a given success is dependent on unrelenting dedication and hard work.
Sorry Oakland. I know I am biased, but the coach of the year HAD to go to Leon. I respect what Michael O'Neil has done with a very small talent pool but at the end of the day, all they have done is get through a qualifying campaign. It is a big achievement for Northern Ireland and congratulations to them. But in the grand scheme of things, this is a very minor success. If they are going to give it to him, then why not Chris Coleman. After all, it is over 50 years since Wales made it to a major championship and N Ireland have appeared in tournaments far more recently than that.
This is about achievement, or at least it should be. Leon has taken GB tennis from (to use a football analogy) a relegation play-off for the Vauxhall Conference to World Champions and World Nº1 in just five years. That trumps anything achieved by the N Ireland coach by a country mile.
The fact is that had this event been held anywhere else in the UK, Leon would have won. This was playing to an audience and home town bias - pure and simple.

-- Edited by Bob in Spain on Sunday 20th of December 2015 10:46:18 PM

I get your drift Bob !! Certainly would have been really stoked for Leon, and to all intents and purposes he should have won, but a large part of me was really happy for Michael at the same time. He's got NI qualified with basically just the WBA back 4, and noone else of note whereas Wales do have 2 world class players. Quite probably a hometown decision, but there you go.

TMH · Futures qualifying

christ wrote:
Bob in Spain wrote:
This is about achievement, or at least it should be.

No - as far as I can tell it is about personality (it is not, after all, the Sports Achiever of the Year" award). I am torn, as I would like to see Leon win, but the question I ask myself is "Could Leon have won without Andy?".

It is about achievement. The meaning of the word personality has changed since the inception of the award. The whole 'personality' (in modern meaning) having anything to do with the award is a perpetuated myth.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

I know I should probably start a new thread for SPOTY 2016, but here is just as good.

Have to say that the result was as predictable as it gets, but only because Andy is fully deserving of all the accolades that he gets. He is just super human.

ANDY MURRAY - SPOTY CHAMPION 2016

The first person in the history of SPOTY to win the award on 3 separate occasions.

Roll on 2017.