This has been a momentous weekend for South Shields and Gibraltar although I must confess to having reservations about both events. Joe McElderry of South Shields became the sixth winner of the X factor before an estimated live audience of 20 million while even more are reported to have witnessed the crowning of Miss Gibraltar as Miss World in South Africa.
In fact I had more than one moan about what was on the TV before Ryan Giggs became the public choice as Sport’s Personality of the Year from nine other nominated contestants and I discovered a showing of the ITV production of the Forsyte Saga with Gina McKee. There was also the ubiquitous Piers Morgan introducing the Susan Boyle Story.
I sometimes feel I have missed out on things everyone else seems to possess or enjoy. I have not felt like that about the possession of gold jewellery or gold trinkets although a few gold bars would come in handy at the present time. At present there are constant adverts on commercial TV to sell gold jewellery and trinkets for paper money. With the paper money, bonds and such like becoming suspect because of the speculative investing of the financial institutions and with interests rates down to zero everyone, who can, appears to be investing in gold with the consequence that the price is rising and rising. There is obviously considerable profit in buying up gold jewellery and melting it back down into purified ingots. Recently one advertiser is promising to offer an additional 20% cash over Christmas thus indicating the size of the profits already being made by the buying companies.
As an adult I was never a wholehearted fan of the Miss World competition although it was one of the things watched in childhood and as a youth along with Sports Personality of the year, the Eurosong contestants and other perennials on BBC TV since the time when there was just the BBC in the early part of the 1950‘s. However I was advised on Saturday evening that with a population of around 30000 Miss Gibraltar had won the 2009 event which took place in South Africa. Wondering what to watch next later on the evening I went through all the channels and came across a recording being shown on the Travel Channel for the event which had taken place earlier in the day. Next year the final moves to Vietnam, having been located in China four times during the past decade.
The event commenced in 1951 marking the arrival of the bikini swimming costume and was organised and owned by Robert Morley and his wife Julia who has continued to run the company since her husband’s death in 2000. The immediate financial and publicity success of the venture led to the creation of Miss Universe in the United States subsequently taken over by Donald Trump. Both organisation are therefore commercial enterprises and both donate to charity with Miss World recorded as having given an average of £5 million throughout its lifetime. Miss World lives in London for a year and participates in a year long representation around the world culminating in handing over the crown.
The problem with the contest is that it originally concentrated on a western idea of trophy beauty gave the impression that few contestants possessed or were engaged in higher education or preparing for professional careers outside of modelling. The contest appeared unable to adjust to changes is social attitudes, which is not always a bad thing but commenced to fall foul of those fighting for men in general to treat women in general differently. One candidate was stripped of her crown because it was discovered she was a single mother and it was not until 2001 that someone with a black skin won. No one was successful from Asia until China, won and Muslim countries do not enter. While Argentina and Brazil have won once Venezuela has won the most of any country together with India with six wins. Why this is so is not known to me. It could be that countries have special relationships, especially as the London based organisation has build up a world wide organisations of competitions often with regional and national heats. Controversy over the nature of the event has resulted in the show no longer being screened on UK terrestrial TV. There was a small paragraph and photo in the Journal newspaper inside pages this morning and I expect there was similar limited attention in the national papers.
For the past six years Fast Track international events have been created which enable winners to reach the finals and surprise surprise many are also included in the final 7 from which the winner and her two assistants are chosen, These events include Miss Beach Beauty which was the success of Miss Gibraltar -Kaiane Aldorino, a staffing officer at St Bernard’s Hospital and also of others who reach the last seven. Miss Talent who was from Canada had training as a soprano and sand at the finals. Other are Miss Sports, Top Model and Beauty with a purpose. In the UK there were regional events as well as the national but recently there have been separate competitions for the individual countries who then compete for Miss World and with the highest placed then entered into Miss International Pageant. The UK last won Miss World in 1983 Miss UK has never won Miss Universe although in fairness to the rival event while also giving a special place to Venezuela the winners appears to have been more world wide.
Because of concerns about the way such events influence attitudes towards body appearance and roles a new approach was adopted in 2001 through the United Nations with the Miss Earth contest where as the name suggests the emphasis on the environment. Although the finals have been held in the Philippines other nations host the preliminary competitions. For the first time in 2007 China entered alongside, Taiwan, Hong King and Tibet overcoming previous political difficulties and even Cuba has also entered contestants.
Not withstanding these observations Gibraltar has gone wild with the Chief Minister promising a Royal homecoming. There was front page publicity and editorials in Panorama and the Gibraltar Chronicle rThis is understandable although I wish the international recognition could have been for something different.
The most obvious other categories are popular music and sport and where Gibraltar radio plays an excellent selection of current and recent popular records throughout every day. There are international entertainers born on the Rock with Surianne listed in my front list of 40 friends. The former colony, now a British territory with its own government is able to compete in the Olympic games.
On Sunday evening Joe McElderry of South Shields was voted by the public the sixth winner of the X Factor show which in the UK succeeded the Pop Idol show. The difference between the two series is that the present UK version includes three categories of singers, Groups, and individualists above and below the age of 24 with separate categories for the young male and female hopefuls, and there is also competition between the judges who act as mentors for one of the four categories each of six singers, which are then reduced to three for the live finals which begin with 12 and then follow with weekly eliminations culmination this year with a semi final of three on the Saturday in which Stacey Solomon, the single Jewish sounding single parent from Essex was eliminated. Joe was the firm favourite to win for most of the series, especially by the bookmakers and was the best singer and has a likeable boyish personality and is destined to have the Christmas number 1 with his first single. What he will do after that remains to be determined. Some of the previous winners have quickly disappeared without a trace, although the runners up last year, a group called JLO have had two number 1 chart successes along with the Winner Alexandra Burke. Leona Lewis has gone on to international success in Europe and the USA.
My reservations are about the impact upon the rest of the lives of those who reach the final weeks and have all the media attention and are then brought down to earth after the Finals Tour of the UK in January and February. The other is that the show has become a major industry on its own making a lot of money for ITV with an estimated £80-£100 million from advertising and £18 million over the two nights of the finals which are estimated to have had an audience of 20 million with 10 Million votes cast via telephones and TV Red buttons. This also brings in massive revenue for the telephone companies as well as the production company with pays the fees of the judges and the international entertainers who participate and is the only opportunity for the viewer to see some of great stars perform live for free.
There are reports of Simon Cowell threatening to leave the show unless his financial take is increased for next season. There is talk of some judges leaving and the number being increased to 5 with one Robbie Williams being added. There is even more talk of negotiations for the format to go to the States to rival or replace American Idol while other reports suggest hard negotiations over Simon’s continuing involvement with American Idol and of his setting his sights on Hollywood and Las Vegas.
Meanwhile as in Gibraltar, South Shields and Tyneside has gone bonkers about the success and this is also part of my complaint because it has become a feature for the audience to show their appreciation or lack of it by participating with applause or booing throughout the performance. I attended the tour show at the Metro arena in 2007 and which led to the discovery of MySpace when in preparation for the show I looked up the participating contestants and discovered that a couple listed their sites on MySpace which I then added. The Leona Lewis organisation appears to publish news items as Blogs several times a week most weeks. I went primarily to listen to Leona Live and while she lived up to expectations I found the constant interruptions from the audience irritating and spoiling her performance. While audience participating is a feature of rock concerts for example the loudness of the sound system means that the audience is not heard over the music unless the singer and band stop while encouraging the audience to sing along.
As part of Saturday’s show there was what as become the traditional film of the visit earlier in the week to Joe’s former secondary school, to his parental home and giving an impromptu concerts in the central public areas of the Sage concert halls in Gateshead. In the subsequent media coverage there was a report from the Newcastle equivalent of the Fame Academy where Joe is still officially studying Performing Arts at the Newcastle College and where staff and students were also going bonkers in their excitement at the win. I have been told a great roar was heard from the area of pubs and clubs throughout the town and with dancing in the streets following. It emerged that Joe had acted as a singing waiter at the Custom’s House where the news of the win literally stopped the show, a pantomime.
On Monday although up early for putting out the wheelie bin and for getting the car parked in the street for the trip to Killingworth to visit O.E.S the regional repair agents for Brother printers, I missed the early morning news and chat programmes where Joe was being interviewed on ITV and GMTV to push his winning single, available for download from today and on sale from Wednesday. He will be signing copies of the single from the record store in South Shields High Street at 4pm.
Passing through the Tyne Tunnel on the way to Kiillingworth I noted the progress being made on building the adjacent two lane second tunnel. Using the Tunnel reduces the journey to under seven miles and the small industrial estate is on the main road from the A10 north of the Township. The Office supplies company is at the far end of the main road through the estate and I left the two machines paying the single fee of £25 plus VAT for an engineer to examine when they visited at 2pm.
Before returning I visited the township shopping centre which is a smaller version of that at Cramlington and fortunately with a Wilkinson’s store where I was able to buy 11 work albums in Black and Blue and enjoy a cup of coffee in the Morrison’s supermarket, after buying a copy of the Journal newspaper in the combined Post Office and newsagents. The Journal morning Newspaper which is read throughout Tyneside, the five local authority areas and into Northumberland and Durham, featured Joe’s success on its front pages and with several photographs.
On my return visit mid afternoon having been advised that paper or card had been removed from both machines which were now working without difficulty I bought a copy of the Evening Chronicle which again featured the success emphasising the contagious joy which had swept throughout the area and how proud everyone felt about a nice lad fromt he area winning the hearts of two thirds of the ten million who voted. The Sun newspaper suggested that Simon is negotiating a £5 deal which could take Joe to Hollywood for a teenage musical follow up to the success of High School and Hannah Montana.
I had intended to call in at a newsagent for the Shield’s Gazette on the way home but forgot and had to go out again having parked the car as the rain continued to fall with news of further cold and snow towards the weekend. The paper and a special four page cover and end piece X Static and a eight page centrepiece covering all his appearances in the contest. Tyne Tees TV devoted three quarters of the half hour evening show to the celebration and it is evident the whole community has responded. There were flashing signs at either end of the Tunnel normally used for traffic messages which read Well Done Joe. The feel good factor outweighed news that 1700 steel working jobs look likely to be lost on Teeside, the recent deaths of lads from the region in Afghanistan and the BA cabin staff had voted 92.5 percent in favour of prolonged strike action over Christmas and New Year affecting an estimated 1 million travellers.
One piece of new information is that Joe had performed as a singing waiter in the Green Room at the Customs House. Joe father is a probation officer and although he separated from Joe Mother when he was a child they are said to have a continuing good relationship. He was raised as by his mother, grandmother and her sisters. His grandmother used to perform in a local group called the Dolly Mixtures which I am sure I came across in their day. It was quite something to see the 200 staff and students at the Newcastle College Performance Academy jump for joy as if the local football club had won rhe cup and for once the community was not divided between Newcastle and Sunderland.
One consequence of all the attention on the X Factor is that there was less for the Sports Personality of the Year which commanded my interest until I discovered a showing of the colour remake of the TV series The Forsyte Saga which was originally shown on ITV with a ten part series covering the first two books and a four part series covering the last and which I managed to see the last two episodes alongside the Sports and Pop blockbusters.
As the winner of the Sports Personality of the Year Trophy commented he had been watching since childhood this annual event which reviews what has happened in all British sporting activity over the year although he was not born when it commenced in 1954 when I was already 15 years of age. Since then the format has changed in two major ways. The number of awards has increased from one to three to eight, with attention given to newcomers, to disability sports and to the contribution by volunteers, as well as to team performances and performances by those from other countries. One of the most interesting and moving awards is the Lifetime achievement award which went this year to Steve Ballesteros, the Golfer recovering from surgery for cancer of the brain. There was a major gathering of international golfers in the auditorium to show their support and respect for the golfer who looked still very ill at his Spanish home.
The other change in format is move the show from the BBC studios in London to the large Arenas around the County and this year there was an audience of 10000 at Sheffield on top of the 1000-1500 sporting personalities. Understandably the audience gave a thundering roof raising ovation when a former resident of the city came to the platform as one of the ten nominations, Jessica Ennis winner of the World Athletics Championship Gold Medal for the heptathlon five event.. There are separate award shows prior to the big night in Ireland, Wales and Scotland and 12 Regional events in England.
This year the number of those invited on stage and for whom the public could vote was ten because of the all-round success with Jenson Button the World Racing Champion the bookmakers Favourite and Andrew Strauss Captain of the Winning Ashes Cricket series, and two Athletic Champions who won Gold Medals in the World Championship, another did so in Gymnastics and Tom Daley the 15 year old in High Diving. Andy Murray was nominated for being ranked second in the World and someone who won six stages in the Tour De France Cycle race was another.
I did not expect Tom Daley to win the main award as that is bound to come if he wins an Olympic Medal and other World events. As expected he was the only likely winner of the award for Best Young Personality.
Looking over the records those from Athletics have won 17 Times and Car Racing 6 with Football now 5
Alongside Boxing and Cricket 4. No one has won the trophy twice although a few have been runners up twice and while others have won the trophy as well as being second and third. Two Royals have won Trophies through horse riding which shows public support for the Royals as much as for the sporting achievements as Princess Anne beat George Best although he was also having personal problems at the time. Racing drivers have finished second in the last three years. My money, if I had gambled was on Jennifer Ennis the favourite to win Gold at the last Olympics until injury prevented her from competing at the last moments. Her outstanding win in the World Championship was a great achievement. However while bookmakers had placed Ryan Giggs as the 66.1 outsider, I hoped he would do well. For twenty years he has made an outstanding contribution to Manchester United winning sides with a dozen trophy medals to his credit and he has carried himself with dignity following his marriage and the birth of his children who he sent to bed reminding they had school in the morning. He is unusual in an outstanding way for having played for only one club and for having the same agent throughout his career. They shook hands when he was 17 and have been together without contract since that day. He has scored 100 goals for the club this year and many of his performances have been magical. The word genius is overused but not in his instance. I sometimes criticise the British Public for their choice. To the British Footballing public who voted for him I have to say well done. On Monday morning the was a heated debate on the Five Live News and talk shows with many feeling that the award should have gone to an Athlete who had achieved success at world level for an individual performance. Because of the way these events unfolded adn fthe rediscovering of Forsyte Saga it became a memorable weekend.
In fact I had more than one moan about what was on the TV before Ryan Giggs became the public choice as Sport’s Personality of the Year from nine other nominated contestants and I discovered a showing of the ITV production of the Forsyte Saga with Gina McKee. There was also the ubiquitous Piers Morgan introducing the Susan Boyle Story.
I sometimes feel I have missed out on things everyone else seems to possess or enjoy. I have not felt like that about the possession of gold jewellery or gold trinkets although a few gold bars would come in handy at the present time. At present there are constant adverts on commercial TV to sell gold jewellery and trinkets for paper money. With the paper money, bonds and such like becoming suspect because of the speculative investing of the financial institutions and with interests rates down to zero everyone, who can, appears to be investing in gold with the consequence that the price is rising and rising. There is obviously considerable profit in buying up gold jewellery and melting it back down into purified ingots. Recently one advertiser is promising to offer an additional 20% cash over Christmas thus indicating the size of the profits already being made by the buying companies.
As an adult I was never a wholehearted fan of the Miss World competition although it was one of the things watched in childhood and as a youth along with Sports Personality of the year, the Eurosong contestants and other perennials on BBC TV since the time when there was just the BBC in the early part of the 1950‘s. However I was advised on Saturday evening that with a population of around 30000 Miss Gibraltar had won the 2009 event which took place in South Africa. Wondering what to watch next later on the evening I went through all the channels and came across a recording being shown on the Travel Channel for the event which had taken place earlier in the day. Next year the final moves to Vietnam, having been located in China four times during the past decade.
The event commenced in 1951 marking the arrival of the bikini swimming costume and was organised and owned by Robert Morley and his wife Julia who has continued to run the company since her husband’s death in 2000. The immediate financial and publicity success of the venture led to the creation of Miss Universe in the United States subsequently taken over by Donald Trump. Both organisation are therefore commercial enterprises and both donate to charity with Miss World recorded as having given an average of £5 million throughout its lifetime. Miss World lives in London for a year and participates in a year long representation around the world culminating in handing over the crown.
The problem with the contest is that it originally concentrated on a western idea of trophy beauty gave the impression that few contestants possessed or were engaged in higher education or preparing for professional careers outside of modelling. The contest appeared unable to adjust to changes is social attitudes, which is not always a bad thing but commenced to fall foul of those fighting for men in general to treat women in general differently. One candidate was stripped of her crown because it was discovered she was a single mother and it was not until 2001 that someone with a black skin won. No one was successful from Asia until China, won and Muslim countries do not enter. While Argentina and Brazil have won once Venezuela has won the most of any country together with India with six wins. Why this is so is not known to me. It could be that countries have special relationships, especially as the London based organisation has build up a world wide organisations of competitions often with regional and national heats. Controversy over the nature of the event has resulted in the show no longer being screened on UK terrestrial TV. There was a small paragraph and photo in the Journal newspaper inside pages this morning and I expect there was similar limited attention in the national papers.
For the past six years Fast Track international events have been created which enable winners to reach the finals and surprise surprise many are also included in the final 7 from which the winner and her two assistants are chosen, These events include Miss Beach Beauty which was the success of Miss Gibraltar -Kaiane Aldorino, a staffing officer at St Bernard’s Hospital and also of others who reach the last seven. Miss Talent who was from Canada had training as a soprano and sand at the finals. Other are Miss Sports, Top Model and Beauty with a purpose. In the UK there were regional events as well as the national but recently there have been separate competitions for the individual countries who then compete for Miss World and with the highest placed then entered into Miss International Pageant. The UK last won Miss World in 1983 Miss UK has never won Miss Universe although in fairness to the rival event while also giving a special place to Venezuela the winners appears to have been more world wide.
Because of concerns about the way such events influence attitudes towards body appearance and roles a new approach was adopted in 2001 through the United Nations with the Miss Earth contest where as the name suggests the emphasis on the environment. Although the finals have been held in the Philippines other nations host the preliminary competitions. For the first time in 2007 China entered alongside, Taiwan, Hong King and Tibet overcoming previous political difficulties and even Cuba has also entered contestants.
Not withstanding these observations Gibraltar has gone wild with the Chief Minister promising a Royal homecoming. There was front page publicity and editorials in Panorama and the Gibraltar Chronicle rThis is understandable although I wish the international recognition could have been for something different.
The most obvious other categories are popular music and sport and where Gibraltar radio plays an excellent selection of current and recent popular records throughout every day. There are international entertainers born on the Rock with Surianne listed in my front list of 40 friends. The former colony, now a British territory with its own government is able to compete in the Olympic games.
On Sunday evening Joe McElderry of South Shields was voted by the public the sixth winner of the X Factor show which in the UK succeeded the Pop Idol show. The difference between the two series is that the present UK version includes three categories of singers, Groups, and individualists above and below the age of 24 with separate categories for the young male and female hopefuls, and there is also competition between the judges who act as mentors for one of the four categories each of six singers, which are then reduced to three for the live finals which begin with 12 and then follow with weekly eliminations culmination this year with a semi final of three on the Saturday in which Stacey Solomon, the single Jewish sounding single parent from Essex was eliminated. Joe was the firm favourite to win for most of the series, especially by the bookmakers and was the best singer and has a likeable boyish personality and is destined to have the Christmas number 1 with his first single. What he will do after that remains to be determined. Some of the previous winners have quickly disappeared without a trace, although the runners up last year, a group called JLO have had two number 1 chart successes along with the Winner Alexandra Burke. Leona Lewis has gone on to international success in Europe and the USA.
My reservations are about the impact upon the rest of the lives of those who reach the final weeks and have all the media attention and are then brought down to earth after the Finals Tour of the UK in January and February. The other is that the show has become a major industry on its own making a lot of money for ITV with an estimated £80-£100 million from advertising and £18 million over the two nights of the finals which are estimated to have had an audience of 20 million with 10 Million votes cast via telephones and TV Red buttons. This also brings in massive revenue for the telephone companies as well as the production company with pays the fees of the judges and the international entertainers who participate and is the only opportunity for the viewer to see some of great stars perform live for free.
There are reports of Simon Cowell threatening to leave the show unless his financial take is increased for next season. There is talk of some judges leaving and the number being increased to 5 with one Robbie Williams being added. There is even more talk of negotiations for the format to go to the States to rival or replace American Idol while other reports suggest hard negotiations over Simon’s continuing involvement with American Idol and of his setting his sights on Hollywood and Las Vegas.
Meanwhile as in Gibraltar, South Shields and Tyneside has gone bonkers about the success and this is also part of my complaint because it has become a feature for the audience to show their appreciation or lack of it by participating with applause or booing throughout the performance. I attended the tour show at the Metro arena in 2007 and which led to the discovery of MySpace when in preparation for the show I looked up the participating contestants and discovered that a couple listed their sites on MySpace which I then added. The Leona Lewis organisation appears to publish news items as Blogs several times a week most weeks. I went primarily to listen to Leona Live and while she lived up to expectations I found the constant interruptions from the audience irritating and spoiling her performance. While audience participating is a feature of rock concerts for example the loudness of the sound system means that the audience is not heard over the music unless the singer and band stop while encouraging the audience to sing along.
As part of Saturday’s show there was what as become the traditional film of the visit earlier in the week to Joe’s former secondary school, to his parental home and giving an impromptu concerts in the central public areas of the Sage concert halls in Gateshead. In the subsequent media coverage there was a report from the Newcastle equivalent of the Fame Academy where Joe is still officially studying Performing Arts at the Newcastle College and where staff and students were also going bonkers in their excitement at the win. I have been told a great roar was heard from the area of pubs and clubs throughout the town and with dancing in the streets following. It emerged that Joe had acted as a singing waiter at the Custom’s House where the news of the win literally stopped the show, a pantomime.
On Monday although up early for putting out the wheelie bin and for getting the car parked in the street for the trip to Killingworth to visit O.E.S the regional repair agents for Brother printers, I missed the early morning news and chat programmes where Joe was being interviewed on ITV and GMTV to push his winning single, available for download from today and on sale from Wednesday. He will be signing copies of the single from the record store in South Shields High Street at 4pm.
Passing through the Tyne Tunnel on the way to Kiillingworth I noted the progress being made on building the adjacent two lane second tunnel. Using the Tunnel reduces the journey to under seven miles and the small industrial estate is on the main road from the A10 north of the Township. The Office supplies company is at the far end of the main road through the estate and I left the two machines paying the single fee of £25 plus VAT for an engineer to examine when they visited at 2pm.
Before returning I visited the township shopping centre which is a smaller version of that at Cramlington and fortunately with a Wilkinson’s store where I was able to buy 11 work albums in Black and Blue and enjoy a cup of coffee in the Morrison’s supermarket, after buying a copy of the Journal newspaper in the combined Post Office and newsagents. The Journal morning Newspaper which is read throughout Tyneside, the five local authority areas and into Northumberland and Durham, featured Joe’s success on its front pages and with several photographs.
On my return visit mid afternoon having been advised that paper or card had been removed from both machines which were now working without difficulty I bought a copy of the Evening Chronicle which again featured the success emphasising the contagious joy which had swept throughout the area and how proud everyone felt about a nice lad fromt he area winning the hearts of two thirds of the ten million who voted. The Sun newspaper suggested that Simon is negotiating a £5 deal which could take Joe to Hollywood for a teenage musical follow up to the success of High School and Hannah Montana.
I had intended to call in at a newsagent for the Shield’s Gazette on the way home but forgot and had to go out again having parked the car as the rain continued to fall with news of further cold and snow towards the weekend. The paper and a special four page cover and end piece X Static and a eight page centrepiece covering all his appearances in the contest. Tyne Tees TV devoted three quarters of the half hour evening show to the celebration and it is evident the whole community has responded. There were flashing signs at either end of the Tunnel normally used for traffic messages which read Well Done Joe. The feel good factor outweighed news that 1700 steel working jobs look likely to be lost on Teeside, the recent deaths of lads from the region in Afghanistan and the BA cabin staff had voted 92.5 percent in favour of prolonged strike action over Christmas and New Year affecting an estimated 1 million travellers.
One piece of new information is that Joe had performed as a singing waiter in the Green Room at the Customs House. Joe father is a probation officer and although he separated from Joe Mother when he was a child they are said to have a continuing good relationship. He was raised as by his mother, grandmother and her sisters. His grandmother used to perform in a local group called the Dolly Mixtures which I am sure I came across in their day. It was quite something to see the 200 staff and students at the Newcastle College Performance Academy jump for joy as if the local football club had won rhe cup and for once the community was not divided between Newcastle and Sunderland.
One consequence of all the attention on the X Factor is that there was less for the Sports Personality of the Year which commanded my interest until I discovered a showing of the colour remake of the TV series The Forsyte Saga which was originally shown on ITV with a ten part series covering the first two books and a four part series covering the last and which I managed to see the last two episodes alongside the Sports and Pop blockbusters.
As the winner of the Sports Personality of the Year Trophy commented he had been watching since childhood this annual event which reviews what has happened in all British sporting activity over the year although he was not born when it commenced in 1954 when I was already 15 years of age. Since then the format has changed in two major ways. The number of awards has increased from one to three to eight, with attention given to newcomers, to disability sports and to the contribution by volunteers, as well as to team performances and performances by those from other countries. One of the most interesting and moving awards is the Lifetime achievement award which went this year to Steve Ballesteros, the Golfer recovering from surgery for cancer of the brain. There was a major gathering of international golfers in the auditorium to show their support and respect for the golfer who looked still very ill at his Spanish home.
The other change in format is move the show from the BBC studios in London to the large Arenas around the County and this year there was an audience of 10000 at Sheffield on top of the 1000-1500 sporting personalities. Understandably the audience gave a thundering roof raising ovation when a former resident of the city came to the platform as one of the ten nominations, Jessica Ennis winner of the World Athletics Championship Gold Medal for the heptathlon five event.. There are separate award shows prior to the big night in Ireland, Wales and Scotland and 12 Regional events in England.
This year the number of those invited on stage and for whom the public could vote was ten because of the all-round success with Jenson Button the World Racing Champion the bookmakers Favourite and Andrew Strauss Captain of the Winning Ashes Cricket series, and two Athletic Champions who won Gold Medals in the World Championship, another did so in Gymnastics and Tom Daley the 15 year old in High Diving. Andy Murray was nominated for being ranked second in the World and someone who won six stages in the Tour De France Cycle race was another.
I did not expect Tom Daley to win the main award as that is bound to come if he wins an Olympic Medal and other World events. As expected he was the only likely winner of the award for Best Young Personality.
Looking over the records those from Athletics have won 17 Times and Car Racing 6 with Football now 5
Alongside Boxing and Cricket 4. No one has won the trophy twice although a few have been runners up twice and while others have won the trophy as well as being second and third. Two Royals have won Trophies through horse riding which shows public support for the Royals as much as for the sporting achievements as Princess Anne beat George Best although he was also having personal problems at the time. Racing drivers have finished second in the last three years. My money, if I had gambled was on Jennifer Ennis the favourite to win Gold at the last Olympics until injury prevented her from competing at the last moments. Her outstanding win in the World Championship was a great achievement. However while bookmakers had placed Ryan Giggs as the 66.1 outsider, I hoped he would do well. For twenty years he has made an outstanding contribution to Manchester United winning sides with a dozen trophy medals to his credit and he has carried himself with dignity following his marriage and the birth of his children who he sent to bed reminding they had school in the morning. He is unusual in an outstanding way for having played for only one club and for having the same agent throughout his career. They shook hands when he was 17 and have been together without contract since that day. He has scored 100 goals for the club this year and many of his performances have been magical. The word genius is overused but not in his instance. I sometimes criticise the British Public for their choice. To the British Footballing public who voted for him I have to say well done. On Monday morning the was a heated debate on the Five Live News and talk shows with many feeling that the award should have gone to an Athlete who had achieved success at world level for an individual performance. Because of the way these events unfolded adn fthe rediscovering of Forsyte Saga it became a memorable weekend.
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