First time I've watched the thing in years. I don't know why but I lways think of Eton Rifles by The Jam, "what chance have you got against a tie and a crest".
It was a really good line up though, several world champions (and not at f******g snooker either). Peaty is multiple world champ and record holder, Mo Farah is the greatest distance runner - probably of all time, Jess Ennis is one of the all time great atheletes, and we had a double tour winner up there. Thought Tyson Fury managed to talk unedited for 3 minutes without making a fool of himself.
There have been years when any one of them could have walked it - christ in the 70's they gave it to princess Anne and in the 80's Steve Davis won it (in an Olympic Year!) and Greg Rusedski won it in 1997 on the back of losing in the US Open final ( a year so diabolically bad that Tm Henman was runner up on the back of achieveing absolutely nothing that year).
Kev has been the image RL needed, he was starting is career just as the game was transitioning to full time professional and he was playing senior rugby when the game began to actually behave like it was full time professional - it took a few years for the message to get through that being a full time pro didn't mean that you had more time recover from your hangover. The only thing I would disagree with him about is that he underestimates just how skillful a player he has been. He had the lot for me, we dismiss things like concentration, fitness, goal kicking, tackling technique, just being able to catch (many can't and it shows) as not being skills, but take them away from a player and you have a bit of pace and a long pass. Pretty useless on their own. We also forget some of the amazing things he has done with the ball in hand because he played so many games. But what he has had through his entire career is superb "game sense". It's the hardest thing to coach and the most important thing in any team sport.
Sometimes you work hard, you have the right attitude on and off the field, you give as much as you can to the people around you and you get rewarded (not always). Congrats to the greatest Leeds player of them all.
And, I don't begrudge Murray the win. Yes, the "whatever" cup is the equivalent of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, yes, they put him on last, yes they had him sat in the front row and continually cut to him though the entire show so you didn't forget who you were supposed to be voting for but the SPOTY always had the "captures the public imagination" tagline (although how Steve Davis managed to do that is a total mystery to me) which basically means the sport the BBC shows - and they showed all the Davis Cup and people got into it. Murray is a good guy, he works impossibly hard and is a credit to his sport - which is rediculously competitive at all ages and very, very hard to succeed in.
I might actually watch it next year - just as long as they don't give it to that arrogant, selfish p**k Lewis Hamilton. Lewis, it's the car mate
