I THINK it might be fair to say that we are now over the “awards season”, culminating with the highlight of the sporting awards calendar, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
This year’s winner for the top award was extremely popular and for an unprecedented third time, was presented to Scotland’s Andy Murray.
The BBC released the voting figures to show that Murray led the vote by a considerable margin of more than 120,000 from his nearest rival Alistair Brownlee,.
The question many people will be asking must be: “What is the secret that tennis holds to create not just one but three world champions – Andy Murray, Jamie Murray and Gordon Reid – all from Scotland, all in the same year?” The problem is there is no definitive answer to that question. It’s a combination of many factors that come together to create the right environment at the right time to bring success.
Judy Murray, must be the proudest mum in the land. Having had the privilege of hearing Judy speak about the early days with her boys, Andy and Jamie, it certainly was not an easy task for her as I believe money was in short supply.
However, that didn’t deter her as she set about creating her own games using normal day-to-day objects that were available to stimulate their interest.
Back in 2015 she created Miss-Hits, a programme which is all about getting more girls in the five to eight year age bracket into tennis and it focuses on fun, friendship and enjoyment.
She now travels throughout the country delivering her project and encouraging young girls to get active and fit through tennis.
Not content with running one programme, Judy also delivers Tennis on the Road which is a programme of starter tennis for adults and children.
Basically, and these are her own words: “It involves taking a van full of equipment and a team of people out to all parts of the country to try tennis.”
I am sure that she is delighted with the announcement this week from Tennis Scotland, which unveiled a £15m funding package in partnership with sportscotland. This is aimed to double the number of indoor courts to 225 within the decade and boost participation.
I believe Judy Murray was instrumental in this and deserves a huge vote of thanks for her never-ending work in the sport.
Going back to the BBC awards, one thing about 2016 we can comment on is the inclusion of four women in the final 16 nominees.
This is a long way from the disappointing event in 2011 when there were no women nominated by the panel for inclusion on the final list. However, I think we still must strive for a much closer balance for future events.
Yet another positive on the night that provided us all with a real visible step in the pursuit of diversity was the inclusion of Clare Balding and Gabby Logan as two of the three presenters, the other being Gary Lineker. All in all it was an excellent production, covering a variety of sports.
A nd it also delivered a good mix of male and female athletes and para-athletes for interview.
On a different note, although still in the same ball park, there was another seismic shift away from the norm with the presentation of an award to a journalist, Caroline Searle, a member of the Sports Journalists’ Association and a former British Olympic press officer. This was for her services to sports journalism.
Caroline picked up the Doug Garner Award and is the first woman to receive this accolade in the 27-year history of the Association. When you note that last year’s winner was Sir Michael Parkinson and the previous winners read like a who’s who of journalism, you can begin to understand the enormity of this award.
We have here two strong female leaders working daily at a job they love, whilst making a strong impact and huge difference to the lives of many other girls and women.
For me in the future, the aim is not to have to highlight individual women as being trailblazers but to embrace the success of all. Perhaps 2017 will bring this!
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