It may have lacked the brashness of Jeremy Clarkson but the all-male Sports Personality shortlist has precipitated a sporting gender-row.
The annual extravaganza is stuck in the wilderness between celebrating achievement and personality but one of its redeeming features is its ability to foster debate.
And exactly that has happened this week as keyboard warriors have been locked in fierce confrontation. Some see Darren Clarke as the only personality on the shortlist. Others see golfers scarcely worthy of inclusion. Others mourn the absence of Ironman triathletes, while everyone bemoans the inclusion of Andy Murray.
Murray should not have been picked over Becky Adlington and our other female world champions, but the criticism has been blown out of all proportion. Even in our politically-correct age women should only be picked on merit and no one nominated is unworthy of selection.
Other deserving men such as Alistair Brownlee and Sam Tomkins have been omitted, and despite her brilliant record, how many people had actually heard of Ironman’s Chrissie Wellington before this week?
For me Mark Cavendish must be the winner. The Manx missile exudes Ali-esque confidence but also Ali-esque performance. His Green and Rainbow jersey winning exploits compare favourably with winning the World 5,000m title, and then the London Marathon as well.
With the exception of the grotesquely short-sighted Manchester Evening news, who redefined the term British by including Messrs Toure, Viera and Berbetov, footballers were notably absent from the shortlists.
Mario Ballotelli would surely win a Premier-League personality contest, but his City outfit would contend the achievement award as well. A clinical counter-attack to see off Arsenal was followed by a routine yet sublime demolition of Norwich. Cup draws against Liverpool and United are unkind, but their opponents will be even more fearful.
Darren Ambrose's sensational winning Carling Cup strike for Crystal Palace, along with Stoke and Birmingham's Europa League success, illustrates the great depth of the English game, although Bristol Rovers humbling of AFC Totten added a dose of reality.
‘Kean Out’ banners were seen during the strikes and the tennis last week, but protesting as your club completes a priceless victory is a step-too far. Steve Kean ‘lost’ to Steve Bruce in the managerial sack race, and he was handed a Yakubu shaped lifeline against Swansea.
Frank Lampard missing a penalty shows that a major international tournament must be approaching, and while England have avoided the groups of death and of debt, there is no room for complacency.
Our matches are by no means easy, and logistical travelling problems and the inevitable media hype will add to the difficulty.
Spain look set to dominate next summer and their tennis players did likewise by winning a third Davis Cup in four years.
Raphael Nadal’s mental and physical brilliance in overcoming Argentina’s two Juan’s (Monaco and Del Potro) ridicules his supposed ‘loss of love’ for the game. Nadal is back, and like Federer, will enter the New Year ominously high on confidence.
Argentina are the subject of the latest Olympics controversy as they plan to use the Games to showcase their latest attempt to win back the Falklands Islands. And a sporting South American political dispute is a fitting scenario to lament the death of Socrates.
With his classical and political interests, Socrates was far from the average footballer, and while his lifestyle was hardly professional his football certainly was, and he remains one of Brazil’s greats.
Yet after successive weeks of football deaths, it is refreshing to see a sportsman go out in the way he wanted, and despite losing Shane Williams did exactly that at the Millennium Stadium. A dying breed of player Williams absence will surely reduce the excitement of international rugby.
But the game will go on, and after the RFU revelation’s English Rugby returned to normality in a flurry of fists, as a mass Premiership punch-up proved that some elements of the game will never change...
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