BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

It was the week before Christmas give a day or two. It was Sunday evening and that could only mean one thing. And no we're not talking about the Christmas edition of Sunday Night at the London Palladium because that was many moons ago and there are now a superabundance of TV channels to choose from.

Last night the BBC announced its latest Sports Personality of the Year award for what seems like the umpteenth time. It was live from Aberdeen, the granite city that once produced one of the greatest football managers of all time in Sir Alex Ferguson and, of course, beef. For the traditionalists among us change can be ever so unsettling but the decision to move SPOTY from its comfortable slot at BBC TV Centre in London did come as a rude shock to the system.

For most of our childhood we were accustomed to the cosy living room that was a White City studio where the great and good of sport would gather together for a good, old fashioned slap of self congratulation on the back, cheerful banter with smart suited, booted gentlemen and women from the highest realms of sporting excellence. It was an evening of stiff formality, polite protocol and that famous appearance by Red Rum, surely one of the finest Grand National horses of all time.

But with the arrival of high tech gadgetry and increasingly high profile sporting occasions demanding ever bigger stages and audiences, London is no longer seen to be fit for purpose for Sports Personality of the Year. When the BBC moved its vast broadcasting operations to Salford, Manchester the general feeling was that the more intimate surroundings of the London hub were no longer the appropriate stage for such an immensely popular yearly award ceremony.

So it was that among a rich panoply of Scottiish tartan, glamorous bagpipes and a whole host of the sublime and legendary that the BBC paid homage to this year's sporting giants. They came in all their elegant finery, suits and waistcoasts, flowing dresses and scrubbing up beautifully. There was Katarina Johnson Thompson and Dina Asher Smith, athletes with splendid gifts and record breaking achievements that are somehow beyond compare.

And then there was a reverential hush in the audience as Sports Personality of the Year prepared itself for its most moving moment of all. When Doddie Weir, Scottish rugby union's most courageous and bravest rugby union player was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, you must have assumed that Weir would simply give up and accept the inevitable. But not Doddie, a hustle and bustle, charging, stampeding, whole hearted and buccaneering character with nerves of steel and a heart of gold.

Supported by his loving wife Kathy and doting children, Weir has battled his disease with remarkable guts, fortitude and flinty stoicism, escaping to the country with his family and taking time out to reflect on how lucky he's been. Dressed from head to feet in yellow and green tartan, Weir spilled out  his heart with perhaps the most poignant acceptance speech that this awards ceremony audience had ever heard. There were tears in his eyes, fellow sportsmen and women who could hardly hold it all back and excessive appreciation for this tall, imposing man. Weir had indeed captured all of our hearts.

And then after effusive tributes to the victorious South African team who had brought home their rugby union World Cup against England and various references to both tennis, football, cricket, athletics and Lewis Hamilton winning yet another Formula One motor racing trophy, the Sports Personality of the Year ceremony readied itself for another outburst of powerful emotions.

In a way the winner of Sports Personality of the Year needed no guessing at all. It had been won by a World Champion, a World Cup winner extraordinaire and quite the most magnificent sportsman this year. His name is Ben Stokes and he was part of an England cricket team who, with infinite gallantry and a dashing disobedience of the script, beat |New Zealand in a World Cup Final that no Englishman or woman would ever forget.

In the gathering shadows of a summery Lords evening, England and New Zealand had gone toe to toe wih each other, clashing swords and then scrapping memorably to the bitter end. With the game at the super over stage and both teams almost level pegging, New Zealand were still crashing their fours and sixes over the pavilion and through the covers as if they could still sense victory. But then fate intervened as we always knew it would.

After Jofra Archer had bowled some seemingly wasteful and loose deliveries to the New Zealand batting attack it all went to the last ball. Archer ran into bowl yet again and this time the ball was thrashed firmly to the leg side boundary where Jason Roy, anticipating the panic about to ensue among the New Zealand tail, raced in, hurled the ball with uncanny accuracy over the stumps and Jos Buttler, England's lively, fully concentrated wicketkeeper, was on hand to whip off the bails and run out his opponent. England had won the World Cup, the cricket World Cup as opposed to rugby union or the football World Cup and Ben Stokes had become the man for the hour.

 When the victory had been confirmed Stokes thrust his hands into the air, fists bunched together exultantly and was promptly joined by his wildly whooping team mates. Cue the celebrations, the showboating, the running around in circles, the manly hugging, the bonding, the masculine solidarity and the inexplicable chest bumping. In fact cue men in light blue shirts and pullovers abandoning themselves to that indefinable moment of joy when you know that you've achieved something pretty extraordinary. The England cricket team had finally won the World Cup, were World Champions and Ben Stokes was the deserved Sports Personality of the Year.. It could hardly have gone to a nicer man.