Show lacking in personality

SITTING down on Sunday evening after a hard day of roast chicken and watching the football, I was anticipating an enjoyable experience from BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year.

How wrong I was!

The show itself is fatally flawed from the outset as never-off-TV, clean-cut presenters Gary Lineker and Sue Barker attempt to inject life into a poor script of puns and in-jokes.

If I could chose one word to describe the show, it would be ‘limp.’ Not aided in the slightest by the new face of Formula One coverage, Jake Humphrey, who seemed overawed by the situation as his jokes fell flat on their backside.

Previous years have seen the whole spectacle suffer from the fact that British sport has had yet another spectacularly unsuccessful 12 months.

This year at least we had worthy winners of the actual awards, although even the endless procession of our Olympic heroes became tedious towards the show’s conclusion. I found myself willing Lewis Hamilton to be crowned, purely to break the cycle — if you pardon the slight Chris Hoy pun.

Seeing heroes like Sir Bobby Charlton genuinely moved at being bestowed with the Lifetime Achievement award proves that these things mean a lot to those even at the highest echelons of sport.

The idea of recognising the sporting feats of those born to these shores is, in essence, a fantastic one. It is just the dreary delivery of the show which lets it down, a two-hour “spectacular” filled with movie-trailer-style montages and the plugging of the telephone vote.

I found myself hiding behind my hands in embarrassment as Andy Murray’s successful year on the tennis courts was summarised by a feature-film spoof, complete with narration from the booming voice we hear regularly at the cinema.

I understand that the BBC have this flagship award show, and that by making it entertaining they hope to reach out to a demographic which may not have a keen interest in any sport.

But in aiming at the lowest common denominator the ‘Beeb’ seem to alienate those who are actually interested in the awards and their winners — the sports fans.

I half-expected Lineker to introduce special guest John Motson, to explain the offside rule to the discerning viewers.

The calibre of sport stars attending the bash is also becoming more disappointing by the year as even some of those nominated for awards were notable by their absence.

Lineker highlighted the hit-and-miss nature of guests as he introduced “Liverpool and Everton legends” who turned out to be Ian Rush and . . . ahem . . . Phil Neville.

One positive step the producers have made in the last couple of years is selling tickets for the show to the general public, but this is more for financial reasons than anything else.

If the show is to improve and keep its place in the sporting calendar it needs to change. Let’s do away with the Ant & Dec style ‘family entertainment’ aspect — it shouldn’t be that genre of TV.

Let’s make it about the sport again because this year I felt let down. We had genuine sporting achievements to commend — not Lineker and Barker practising their stand-up act.