The Big Conversation

‘IF there was a truly public vote to choose the Sports Personality of the last 50 years, it is clear that David Beckham would win by a mile, followed by Michael Owen, Jonny Wilkinson and then probably Victoria Beckham.

”Shall we wait for Timmy?”

But for some reason footballers do not fare particularly well in the annual poll and, given that Wilkinson is a nailed on certainty for this year’s award, the BBC are trying to inject a bit of excitement by asking people to vote for the best of the previous 49 winners.

Tonight, last year’s winner Paula Radcliffe joins Gary Lineker for the first of five programmes this week called Simply The Best to look back over the previous decade, which saw winners which include Beckham and Owen but also Greg Rusedski and Damon Hill (twice).

If Wilkinson does win the actual vote at the weekend, he will be the first rugby player to win and only the eighth person from a team sport (after four footballers and three cricketers).

By far the majority of winners (16) are athletes, with motorsport (7), boxing (4), tennis (3) and ice skating (3) also providing more than their fair share.’

Posted: 8th, December 2003 | In: Big Brother TV Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink