BBC SPOTY

Four people are up for the Worldwide (formerly Overseas) award and one is Francesco Molinari - never heard of the other three. I’ve voted for him. How about you lot? It’s time a golfer won something! Oh, and a certain T Woods is up for the Sporting Moment of 2018, but I’ve voted for Alistair Cook!

Voted for Fran.
LP, there's a lovely interview and instruction piece with Franny in the latest Golf Digest - well worth seeking it out. (I can't copy and paste it yet.)

But this is good too:

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/francesco-molinari-15-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-2018-open-champion

kwinigolfer wrote:Voted for Fran.
LP, there's a lovely interview and instruction piece with Franny in the latest Golf Digest - well worth seeking it out. (I can't copy and paste it yet.)

But this is good too:

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/francesco-molinari-15-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-2018-open-champion

Thanks, I look it out. Did you vote for Alistair Cook, too

A pretty dry year for British sport. Can't really think of a top 12 that will be worthy. There will be a couple of standouts and a sea of token people filling out the rest of the 12.

super_realist wrote:A pretty dry year for British sport. Can't really think of a top 12 that will be worthy. There will be a couple of standouts and a sea of token people filling out the rest of the 12.

Does feel a bit like that, but the top end is strong.

Word Cup top scorer
F1 winner
TdF winner
Another grand tour winner
We have the heavyweight world champ
Dina Asher Smith - smashes UK record - think her time will come another year

To be honest though, haven't watched it for years now.

Hamilton wins the F1 virtually every year, so it's nothing that remarkable for him to win again and be nominated. Effectively his position in the sport is like the winner of the Oxbridge Boat Race. A coin toss in an engineering competition. Not really an amazing achievement.

It's a very tired show now though, focussed on the low grade sports that the BBC have access to and lame attempts at trying to get us interested in sports (and female/Paralympic sports) that we don't care about whilst virtue signalling at every opportunity.

LadyPutt wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:Voted for Fran.
LP, there's a lovely interview and instruction piece with Franny in the latest Golf Digest - well worth seeking it out. (I can't copy and paste it yet.)

But this is good too:

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/francesco-molinari-15-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-2018-open-champion

Thanks, I look it out. Did you vote for Alistair Cook, too

Certainly did.
Why would Woods be nominated? Ridiculous.

I think as a show of support the UK public should vote to ensure Rahim Sterling is SPOTY.

McLaren wrote:I think as a show of support the UK public should vote to ensure Rahim Sterling is SPOTY.

The sad thing is Mac, you're probably being serious.

McLaren wrote:I think as a show of support the UK public should vote to ensure Rahim Sterling is SPOTY.

Based on what? Are you saying you want to turn receiving racial abuse into a sport???

After all Bermudan Clyde Best had to put up with from habituees of Upton Park's chicken run, he should get the Lifetime Achievement Award . . . . . . . .

McLaren wrote:I think as a show of support the UK public should vote to ensure Rahim Sterling is SPOTY.

I'm a racist piece of s***

I'd have thought all you guys could spot a McLaren troll by now!

Surely Harry Kane wins it, but also Thomas and Hamilton have a good chance. No other stand outs to me. Georgia Hall should get a nod for winning the British open.

beninho wrote:Surely Harry Kane wins it, but also Thomas and Hamilton have a good chance. No other stand outs to me. Georgia Hall should get a nod for winning the British open.

Footballers hardly ever win it Beninho, besides, half of Kane's goals were penalties and 5 of his 6 goals of his total strikes were against the might of Tunisia and Panama probably the two worst teams in the entire tournament. He scored bugger all against Belgium or Croatia, i.e. the games that actually mattered. You can't give him the SPOTY for that. SPOTY has traditionally gone past rewarding people who have won nothing too and scoring a hat trick against a bunch of Canal workers isn't really that impressive.


Has British sport really been that bad that there hasn't been a more standout sportsperson than that in 2018? I would say that Thomas is probably the clear standout, because he actually won something and in quite a memorable fashion.

An English golden boot winner, from a team who went beyond all expectations and made the semis. I would be surprised if he doesn't win it.

Ill offer you double or quits on the palace bet you lost when they stayed up ladt season, which you have conveniently forgot?

And depends what you mean by standout, the world cup was the biggest sporting event of the year, I would say is the biggest event in sport, England made the semis, this will be talked about for years to conme, I think it is a bigger event then thomas winning the tour.

This is the first time you've brought the bet up, i'd forgotten all about it.

The World Cup is not bigger than the Olympics, and England might have made the semi's, but they didn't win and no where near as much was made of them reaching the semi's this year as in 1990 or 1996 for example.

People will talk about reaching the World Cup semi, but you can't give an award for that, no one talks about Golden Boot winners and no one talks about players who score 5 goals against drivel like Tunisia and Panama. Do you think people in Sweden are still talking about reaching a World Cup final in 1994? I doubt it. I think they're probably a bit more grown up than that.

Imagine if someone else from France or Croatia had won the golden boot by scoring 5 against such dross, you'd be laughing your head off at a suggestion they would win an award from the public for that.

It's about perspective, and take the jingoism out of it and 6 goals in a World Cup against awful opposition isn't worthy of an award.

super_realist wrote: Do you think people in Sweden are still talking about reaching a World Cup final in 1994?

I can guarantee you they are not. For obvious reasons.

In defense of Kane, if he were to get the award it would be as much on behalf of the team. Football is by far the biggest sport in the world and a WC semi-final trumps most other achievements, individual or team. And if we're talking about "personality", wouldn't the articulate Kane be a fitting representation of what the UK has to offer these days?

But super, basically you're saying that, as a footballer, you can only be SPOTY if you're a dominant player who actually wins something? That means no English/British football player will ever get it?

And regarding Thomas and TdF, isn't TdF just the cycling equivalent of the F1 engineering contest: You only have to beat a handful of others (the captains on the bigger teams) and it all comes down to who has the better doctors?

Re Kane I'd say the achievement is the achievement, my caveat is he didn't play as well as he could. If he'd scored his easiest chance oft he tournament we could have been 2 - 0 up against Croatia. If and buts. I disagree it hasn't been as big a deal as 90 or 96. I'd say comparable with 90 and bigger than 96 but a difficult thing to gauge really.
What I take out of it is we had a very young team, a youngish manager and it's clearly developing very well. I can't see how you wouldn't be optimistic about the future England team, Kwini is right, we need more young players in the PL, but some of the ones we have (and overseas) are exceptional...but that's a different conversation.
If I had to vote I'd probably go Cook, purely sentimental really, nice bloke and he did achieve a lot.

https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=5887947

In 2014 the Swedes were looking back. Probably still are. A semi final for an underachieving nation is a big thing.

pedro wrote:In defense of Kane, if he were to get the award it would be as much on behalf of the team. Football is by far the biggest sport in the world and a WC semi-final trumps most other achievements, individual or team. And if we're talking about "personality", wouldn't the articulate Kane be a fitting representation of what the UK has to offer these days?

But super, basically you're saying that, as a footballer, you can only be SPOTY if you're a dominant player who actually wins something? That means no English/British football player will ever get it?

And regarding Thomas and TdF, isn't TdF just the cycling equivalent of the F1 engineering contest: You only have to beat a handful of others (the captains on the bigger teams) and it all comes down to who has the better doctors?

If no player does anything spectacular (winning the golden boot against 2 of the worst teams ever to play in a World Cup is hardly thrilling) and doesn't win anything then of course they shouldn't get it.

Awards are supposed to reward WINNERS, not nearly sportsmen. It was an improvement for England to reach a semi given their dismal history of the last 10 tournaments, but that doesn't mean reaching a semi should be something which comes with accolades and awards. That's a losers attitude to reward failure.

Let's say that Britain had the equivalent of Mo Salah who seems to be the key player for Liverpool and he  was to steer a team almost single handed to a Champions League win, that would be a worthy recipient, but someone scoring 5 goals against third world deadbeats isn't something that anyone should care about. I very much doubt Kane sees it as an achievement given that he seems quite a modest and sensible man.

Getting an award for scoring the most goals is like getting the award for getting the most aces at Wimbledon, it means nothing unless it takes you to a tournament win.

If Kane had been the best player at the World Cup, you could possibly justify it, but he wasn't even the best player in the England team.

It's got to be Cook for sporting moment.

I was initially amazed that Molinari was on the BBC shortlist, then I remembered that the BBC did show highlights of the Open and Ryder Cup. If he'd won the US Open and all the WGCs we wouldn't have heard a peep.

Not watched this programme for years, BBC seem to showcase snooker, curling and whatever minor pastimes they broadcast these days. Although recently, as stated above, they are really bigging up women's sports, I'm a cynic but is this just because they don't have to pay so much to show it?

raycastleunited wrote:It's got to be Cook for sporting moment.

I was initially amazed that Molinari was on the BBC shortlist, then I remembered that the BBC did show highlights of the Open and Ryder Cup. If he'd won the US Open and all the WGCs we wouldn't have heard a peep.

Not watched this programme for years, BBC seem to showcase snooker, curling and whatever minor pastimes they broadcast these days. Although recently, as stated above, they are really bigging up women's sports, I'm a cynic but is this just because they don't have to pay so much to show it?

They do the same with disability sport, which is fair enough, I'm not against them showing these, but they really do try to pretend we are more interested in it than we are. BBC Sport website is just the same putting lesser sports and more female orientated stories at the top of the headlines in place of bigger events just to be right on. Guaranteed there will be a token representation of women and disabled athletes in the SPOTY shortlist which may belie their actual achievements to avoid any diversity backlash. Their insistence on calling the Women's England Football team as the pathetically named "The Lionesses" is an example of them missing the mark.

If a year is dominated by 12 men or 12 women, then the list should be skewed proportionally, not just have people shoe-horned in because they represent a demographic.


BBC would be better having a subscription only Sports Channel and actually try to compete with Sky and BT instead of showing really minor events and try to gerrymander interest in it, it's becoming more like the tongue in cheek 1980's "World of Sport" with Dickie Davies on ITV.

I look at the BBC website every morning and the number of headlines for women's sport is on average maybe  2-3.   Often there are zero women's headlines -- men's soccer, boxing, cycling, rugby, cricket dominate most of the time.  I'm not complaining, but I do wonder what your problem is.   It reminds me of sports radio over here where soccer is never mentioned except to comment "nobody is interested in that" when in fact soccer is huge at youth level.

super_realist wrote:

They do the same with disability sport, which is fair enough, I'm not against them showing these, but they really do try to pretend we are more interested in it than we are. 

By "we" you mean "I".  Maybe you aren't interested in disability or womens sport but don't make out that the rest of us aren't. Like Plunky points out the bbc often doesn't have many female sports stories and puts womens sport in weird places, like big world cup matches on the red button.  Hardly ramming it down your throat is it?

Who is Cook? Is this a bake off programme ?
I think we may have to look at this in the context of what is on the BBC which is next to nothing sports wise. Maybe as well they drop the show based on the amount of sport they cover these days.I suppose it gives Gary Lineker another payday to cover his twiitter bill.
With the ridiculously large BBC publically funded budget(assuming you pay ) it is a shame they cannot give us a lot more quality sport.

Dyna

Would you pay a substantially higher tv license fee to get more sport on the BBC?

dynamark wrote:Who is Cook? Is this a bake off programme ?
I think we may have to look at this in the context of what is on the BBC which is next to nothing sports wise. Maybe as well they drop the show based on the amount of sport they cover these days.I suppose it gives Gary Lineker another payday to cover his twiitter bill.
With the ridiculously large BBC publically funded budget(assuming you pay ) it is a shame they cannot give us a lot more quality sport.

Except that they have to cover everything. Radio, web, TV and absolutely every conceivable type of content on all of them. Given the amount of money required to buy sporting rights these days, I'm not remotely surprised they have nothing major to speak of any more. TBH, I'm far more annoyed with the various sports governing bodies for taking short-term cash in place of long-term youth interest etc.

I’m not sure how the BBC gets blamed for the way TV media has developed in this country, they don’t have a say on deregulation, and as Navy says are duty bound to attempt to cater to all. Bit like blaming Labour for Brexit really.

Plunky wrote:I look at the BBC website every morning and the number of headlines for women's sport is on average maybe  2-3.   Often there are zero women's headlines -- men's soccer, boxing, cycling, rugby, cricket dominate most of the time.  I'm not complaining, but I do wonder what your problem is.   It reminds me of sports radio over here where soccer is never mentioned except to comment "nobody is interested in that" when in fact soccer is huge at youth level.

Just had a quick glance at BBC sport - 7 women's sport articles featured on the homepage. I'd say that is closer to average, sometimes there are more. I would say the women's sports get more coverage relative to the interest in the sport. BBC could probably provide an answer based on clicks. I'm not against it, I have 3 daughters and I'd love them to grow up with a passion for healthy sporting activities.

McLaren wrote:

super_realist wrote:

They do the same with disability sport, which is fair enough, I'm not against them showing these, but they really do try to pretend we are more interested in it than we are. 

By "we" you mean "I".  Maybe you aren't interested in disability or womens sport but don't make out that the rest of us aren't. Like Plunky points out the bbc often doesn't have many female sports stories and puts womens sport in weird places, like big world cup matches on the red button.  Hardly ramming it down your throat is it?

Yeah Mac, I'm sure you are enthralled and an avid viewer of women's and disability sport. More virtue signalling from you. Considering you describe Lee Westwood as having Down's Syndrome I find that hard to believe.

Like I said , I'm not against it being shown at all,  I think it's a good thing, I just don't think it should be dressed up and over hyped as something we are all avidly interested in, because the viewing figures would demonstrate that we clearly aren't. I didn't say that they ram it down our throats but sometimes they have some very strange headlines higher up in the order then they probably merit, I don't see other broadcasters doing this, so it seems like BBC is trying too hard to be "right on". It seems very much like a token gesture, of "oh, we better add some female orientated stories in there, just for our diversity quotient" which if I were the type to be offended would probably rank in that category.

raycastleunited wrote:

Plunky wrote:I look at the BBC website every morning and the number of headlines for women's sport is on average maybe  2-3.   Often there are zero women's headlines -- men's soccer, boxing, cycling, rugby, cricket dominate most of the time.  I'm not complaining, but I do wonder what your problem is.   It reminds me of sports radio over here where soccer is never mentioned except to comment "nobody is interested in that" when in fact soccer is huge at youth level.

Just had a quick glance at BBC sport - 7 women's sport articles featured on the homepage. I'd say that is closer to average, sometimes there are more. I would say the women's sports get more coverage relative to the interest in the sport. BBC could probably provide an answer based on clicks. I'm not against it, I have 3 daughters and I'd love them to grow up with a passion for healthy sporting activities.

Then we're clearly not talking about the same webpage !   Maybe it's different if you're accessing from the USA ? I'm not very techy -- only female sport headlines I see today are something about the cresta run and an article about Serena, and they are both in the "in case you missed it " section (old news).

raycastleunited wrote:

Plunky wrote:I look at the BBC website every morning and the number of headlines for women's sport is on average maybe  2-3.   Often there are zero women's headlines -- men's soccer, boxing, cycling, rugby, cricket dominate most of the time.  I'm not complaining, but I do wonder what your problem is.   It reminds me of sports radio over here where soccer is never mentioned except to comment "nobody is interested in that" when in fact soccer is huge at youth level.

Just had a quick glance at BBC sport - 7 women's sport articles featured on the homepage. I'd say that is closer to average, sometimes there are more. I would say the women's sports get more coverage relative to the interest in the sport. BBC could probably provide an answer based on clicks. I'm not against it, I have 3 daughters and I'd love them to grow up with a passion for healthy sporting activities.

I think this must be the difference between the domestic and international pages of the BBC website. I counted two just now; the Cresta Run and WTA protected ranking stories.

We must get a different version again in Scotland because we only have the female darts player story.

Women's sport on the BBC sport home page right now:
- Ladies darts
- Cresta run
- Video of Scottish woman footballer
- Women's sailing
- Empowering women through football in hackney
- Female footballer breaking down barriers

McLaren wrote:We must get a different version again in Scotland because we only have the female darts player story.

In Scotland the sport page focuses on competitive eating of deep fried mars bars

raycastleunited wrote:

McLaren wrote:We must get a different version again in Scotland because we only have the female darts player story.

In Scotland the sport page focuses on competitive eating of deep fried mars bars

That's the low fat version. They're deep frying calzone pizza and kebabs now. We trust these people to vote when they're too stupid to know what to eat.

I think the bbc is one of those organisations that will spend everything they can get.Its an eyewatering amount of money
They get priced out of sport coverage partly to avoid criticall comment in the same way they get stick over salaries.
I am always surprised at the way they cover events with a myriad of reporters standing outside various empty buildings or on a windswept sea front .How many political reporters do you need?

Getting back to SPOTY, even though it’s not golf, great to learn that Billy Monger will receive the Helen Rollason award tonight for overcoming his terrible disability after his car accident in which he lost both his legs (in case you didn’t know) and continuing his path towards an F1 seat

I didn't watch SPOTY, but to give them credit, at least they produced a list that was short and didn't include token nominations, whether this is a new direction, or a reflection that it was a terrible year for British sport is another thing. Fitting that Kane or Hamilton didn't win either.

LadyPutt wrote:Getting back to SPOTY, even though it’s not golf, great to learn that Billy Monger will receive the Helen Rollason award tonight for overcoming his terrible disability after his car accident in which he lost both his legs (in case you didn’t know) and continuing his path towards an F1 seat

Yeah. I'm not sure what to make of that one. To be clear, I have a lot of sympathy for him and the crash that lost him his legs, but surely there were more deserving sporting people who're worthy of that award? Paralympians? Invictus athletes?

Actually watched the last 20 minutes. Really pleased for the netball team, I watched that match and it really was a massively tense finish, their reaction at winning was fantastic as well, they were big underdogs in that final.

This show used to be called sports review of the year, it was a chance to look back and relive the great sporting moments of the year. SPOTY was only part of the show, and attention only turned to the award at the end.

Now it's become a celebrity focused awards ceremony, with little sport and a lot a of waffly interviews, I no longer have any interest. Can't watch it.

raycastleunited wrote:This show used to be called sports review of the year, it was a chance to look back and relive the great sporting moments of the year. SPOTY was only part of the show, and attention only turned to the award at the end.

Now it's become a celebrity focused awards ceremony, with little sport and a lot a of waffly interviews, I no longer have any interest. Can't watch it.

With you on that. Caught some bits last night, but it was pretty ordinary. Mac would have enjoyed it I reckon.

navyblueshorts wrote:

raycastleunited wrote:This show used to be called sports review of the year, it was a chance to look back and relive the great sporting moments of the year. SPOTY was only part of the show, and attention only turned to the award at the end.

Now it's become a celebrity focused awards ceremony, with little sport and a lot a of waffly interviews, I no longer have any interest. Can't watch it.

With you on that. Caught some bits last night, but it was pretty ordinary. Mac would have enjoyed it I reckon.

navyblueshorts wrote:

raycastleunited wrote:This show used to be called sports review of the year, it was a chance to look back and relive the great sporting moments of the year. SPOTY was only part of the show, and attention only turned to the award at the end.

Now it's become a celebrity focused awards ceremony, with little sport and a lot a of waffly interviews, I no longer have any interest. Can't watch it.

With you on that. Caught some bits last night, but it was pretty ordinary. Mac would have enjoyed it I reckon.

Couldn’t agree more, I thought it was an awful spectacle, an incoherent ramble through the year, falling over itself to pander to PCness wherever it could and jumping around aimlessly. Would probably have suited the 2 second attention span twitter generation. I just think they’ve lost their way with the whole format, shame really.

JAS wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:

raycastleunited wrote:This show used to be called sports review of the year, it was a chance to look back and relive the great sporting moments of the year. SPOTY was only part of the show, and attention only turned to the award at the end.

Now it's become a celebrity focused awards ceremony, with little sport and a lot a of waffly interviews, I no longer have any interest. Can't watch it.

With you on that. Caught some bits last night, but it was pretty ordinary. Mac would have enjoyed it I reckon.

Couldn’t agree more, I thought it was an awful spectacle, an incoherent ramble through the year, falling over itself to pander to PCness wherever it could and jumping around aimlessly. Would probably have suited the 2 second attention span twitter generation. I just think they’ve lost their way with the whole format, shame really.

Yeah. Just shows we're becoming fuddy duddies .

My paper going to town on the fact that they only did about 10 seconds on Georgia Hall - without her speaking - and going over the top on England football team.

I'm never wrong wrote:My paper going to town on the fact that they only did about 10 seconds on Georgia Hall - without her speaking - and going over the top on England football team.

Yeah, been seeing some of that start to appear. Guess what? People increasingly don't give a schidt. And guess what again? Millions watched the England football team lead (briefly) in a WC semi. (Almost) no-one watched Georgia Hall. SPOTY panders to the public for its votes - if they want to do it 'properly', keep the public out of it, generate the short list from a committee of 'experts' and the vote from other 'experts'. Don't suppose that would work either as those 'experts' would be worried in case they didn't award some minority, disabled, female sportsperson.

Mac will hate me, and I actually do think equality in all forms matters, but I, for one, am becoming increasingly hacked off with this ramming down the throat of all things 'equality'.