![Katarina Johnson-Thompson celebrates with her third placed BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award during the 2023 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/sport/2023/12/20/TELEMMGLPICT000360527419_17030959345090_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqB9TNGSg3mw1zIYGf6IZil0ikPYR0xYwuEBLwP9UFqPg.jpeg?imwidth=680)
![Katarina Johnson-Thompson celebrates with her third placed BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award during the 2023 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/sport/2023/12/20/TELEMMGLPICT000360527419_17030959345090_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqB9TNGSg3mw1zIYGf6IZil0ikPYR0xYwuEBLwP9UFqPg.jpeg?imwidth=680)
It would not be December without a Spoty controversy. No sooner had Mary Earps placed her famously safe hands on the silver camera than the blowhards were piling in.
At the front of the pack was Piers Morgan, complaining that “many men [were] more deserving”, and suggesting that the prize should have gone to somebody who “actually won something”. Even if this failed to square with his own recommendations of Rory McIlroy (missed cut at the Masters, though did win the Ryder Cup) and Stuart Broad (last an Ashes-holder in 2015)
The coalition of critics also included the bedraggled figure of Joey Barton, who made the crushingly irrelevant claim that “I’d score 100 of 100 penalties against Mary Earps”.
There are at least two obvious problems with such chuntering. Firstly, we all know that the BBC love a progressive agenda, but this wasn’t a choice made by Auntie herself. It was an open vote, which represented the broad-church nature of a light-entertainment audience on a Tuesday night.
Secondly, for the six main contestants – whose attitudes ranged from enthusiasm to ennui – this felt like a case of “You get out what you put in.” While McIlroy was too busy even to send a recorded message, and Frankie Dettori called in from a family holiday in France, Earps and Katarina Johnson-Thompson were engagingly wide-eyed and visibly delighted to be involved.
![The top three on the night, from left to right: Johnson-Thompson (third), Mary Earps (first) and Stuart Broad (second) all pose with their trophies](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/sport/2023/12/20/TELEMMGLPICT000360528485_17030962948040_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqmAeoF98xn-vZkJzeceE1GJgojZYlP8f0i9h2tPqCNsM.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Indeed, Johnson-Thompson’s overwhelmed reaction at finishing third was the emotional heart of the evening, as she wiped a tear from her eye on receiving her miniature trophy. Should she repeat her World Championships gold at next year’s Olympics, one suspects that KJT might well climb to the top of the podium, and thus make it four female winners in a row.
The fact that Earps was the third straight woman to lift the main prize is not quite unprecedented, as Anita Lonsbrough, Dorothy Hyman and Mary Rand passed the baton to each other in the early 1960s. But it does swim against the current of what has traditionally been a chauvinist award, with 55 male Spotys and only 16 female ones to date.
Indeed, until Emma Raducanu won the US Open, the 21st Century had seen more cyclists finish on top than women. So it seems a bit rich to start complaining about gender favouritism as soon as the dial swings back fractionally in the opposite direction. Especially when men won the coach of the year, the team of the year, the lifetime achievement award, the world sport star and the unsung hero prize.
With regard to Earps, my colleague Oliver Brown has argued that saving a penalty in a World Cup final defeat – and then yelling the most visible “F--- off!” of the year – does not in itself a heroine make. Yet this is to understate the contribution of a woman who anchored England’s run in the same reassuring manner as Peter Shilton (until caught cold by the “Hand of God”) did in Argentina in 1986. Throughout the Australian campaign, Earps’s superiority over her fellow goalkeepers was clear.
Yes, it would have been nice to celebrate a genuinely epochal performance, but the real issue was that the BBC did not have an awful lot to shout about. Gabby Logan may have opened the show by trailing a “sensational” 12 months of sport, but in truth this felt a lot like 1997: a year when Greg Rusedski triumphed by virtue of his runner-up finish at the US Open, simply because no-one else had done anything to speak of.
In the absence of great deeds on the field of play, the story of the year has surely been the confirmation of the Women’s World Cup as a genuinely communal event. Almost 15 million watched the final, which was comfortably the highest sports audience of the year.
In itself, this provided a strong clue that the Spoty winner was always likely to be a Lioness. After more than four hours spent deliberating over the shortlist, the BBC’s independent 12-strong panel rightly concluded that Earps – the winner of the golden glove award, with only four goals conceded – was the most deserving individual candidate from that England team.
2023 has not been a classic year in many ways, but England’s women certainly raised spirits during those showery summer weeks. Now, four months on, Earps’s short and sincere speech feels like an antidote to cynicism, while the ensuing curmudgeonly debate gives off a strong vibe of “Scrooge does sport”.
And if the social-media sexists continue their tirades, Earps would be more than justified in issuing the same response that she gave to Jennifer Hermoso, the Spanish striker who took the aforementioned penalty. A dismissive wave and a heartfelt expletive.
Sixteen of the best: Female Spoty winners over the past 70 years
By Ben Rumsby
1962 – Anita Lonsbrough, Swimming
Won the award after clinching three gold and one silver medal at that year’s Commonwealth Games and another gold and silver at the European Championships. She had finished third in Spoty two years earlier after becoming Olympic 200 metres breaststroke champion.
1963 – Dorothy Hyman, Athletics
No international events that year but the sprinter was unbeaten domestically in a record-breaking season. Had won two gold and one silver medal at the Commonwealth Games and another gold and silver at the European Championships the previous year.
1964 – Mary Rand, Athletics
Won Olympic medals in three separate disciplines that year, including breaking the world record en route to the long-jump title, beating the previous record holder in the process. Also clinched silver in the pentathlon and bronze in the 4x100m relay.
![BBC Spoty award was no sham – Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s unbridled joy proved it](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/sport/2023/12/20/TELEMMGLPICT000245758665_17031037157400_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqDfH7F16Xk0VA0Enc8HeGHvUJhikvKyMIPuzJtdmv8Z8.jpeg?imwidth=350)
1969 – Ann Jones, Tennis
Became the first left-handed female Wimbledon singles champion, avenging her final defeat to the great Billie Jean King two years earlier. Then followed it up with mixed-doubles glory alongside Australia’s Fred Stolle before suddenly calling time on her grand slam career.
1971 – The Princess Royal, Equestrian
Likely to remain the only child of a reigning monarch to win the award, Princess Anne beat George Best to the BBC prize after clinching individual eventing gold at the European Championships at Burghley.
1972 – Mary Peters, Athletics
Peters won Britain’s only athletics gold at the Munich Olympics, claiming a dramatic pentathlon win by one-tenth of a second. She went on to be awarded a damehood and was appointed Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter almost five years ago.
1977 – Virginia Wade, Tennis
Britain’s last Wimbledon women’s singles champion, and last grand slam champion until Emma Raducanu. Wade’s triumph became iconic coming in front of Queen Elizabeth II in the latter’s Silver Jubilee year. The Queen did not visit Wimbledon again for 33 years.
1984 – Jayne Torvill, Figure skating
One half of the only duo to win the award alongside Christopher Dean for what remains arguably the greatest skating routine of all time. Their Olympic-gold winning Bolero routine received perfect 6.0s scores from all the judges.
1987 – Fatima Whitbread, Athletics
Whitbread – who spent her first 14 years in children’s homes after being abandoned as a baby – won javelin gold at the World Championships. Awarded this year’s Helen Rollason Award for her work to improve the country’s care system.
![BBC Spoty award was no sham – Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s unbridled joy proved it](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/sport/2023/12/20/TELEMMGLPICT000360528056_17031037662830_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqTwyUECrxcw19f0C6CbcEqNGbjId_ubvX5NK1bHpfsD8.jpeg?imwidth=350)
1991 – Liz McColgan, Athletics
British sport’s first “Supermum” after winning 10,000m gold at the World Championships nine months after giving birth to daughter Eilish. She followed that up with victory in the New York City Marathon. She had resumed competitive running just six weeks after Eilish was born.
2002 – Paula Radcliffe, Athletics
Immediately became Britain’s greatest marathon runner having only taken up the distance that year. Won the London Marathon on debut and broke the world record in Chicago. Also won Commonwealth 5,000 metres gold, European 10,000 metres gold and the World Cross Country Championships.
2004 – Kelly Holmes, Athletics
Awarded a damehood after storming to a shock Olympic 800 metres and 1,500 metres triumph at the age of 34 following an injury-ravaged career. A former member of the British Army, she came out last year as gay.
2006 – Zara Phillips, Equestrian
The first daughter of a previous winner to clinch the award, Phillips eclipsed her mother by claiming Eventing World Championship gold that year on Toytown. She almost topped that at the 2012 Olympics in London by winning silver in the team eventing event.
2021 – Emma Raducanu, Tennis
Her “Fairytale of New York” US Open triumph is one of the greatest stories in sport. Raducanu, who had only just completed her A Levels, was the first qualifier to win a grand slam singles title and did so without dropping a set at Flushing Meadows.
2022 – Beth Mead, Football
The talismanic star of England’s European Championship triumph, Mead helped women’s football to take centre-stage in British sport. Cruelly robbed by injury of the chance to fire her country to World Cup glory this year.
2023 – Mary Earps, Football
The first goalkeeper to win Spoty, Earps made it back-to-back triumphs for the women’s game following her heroic performances in helping England reach a maiden World Cup final. Won the Women’s World Cup Golden Glove for the tournament’s best keeper.
BBC Spoty award was no sham – Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s unbridled joy proved it
Of course, there were complaints about the winner but 2023 has hardly been a classic year for British sport and the shortlist reflected that