Placing referendums in the hands of the British public is always a dangerous game. None more so than at Sports Personality of the Year, where Rory McIlroy was crowned national treasure-in-chief last night.
The big issue with SPOTY is that nobody is entirely sure what they are voting for. There is an annual debate over team sports versus the individual, whether athletes are to be judged on their achievements or their actual personality, or the wider impact they have made.
McIlroy was recognised for a spectacular 2025 in which he finally overcame his Masters hoodoo and helped Europe to victory in the Ryder Cup. That Augusta had taunted him for so long made for a great story, but it can be bettered.
In January, Chloe Kelly was contemplating retiring from football, so desperate to leave Manchester City that she was suffering from panic attacks. The anxiety was causing her hair to fall out. She was out of the England squad and unlikely to go to the Euros at all.
Kelly with the Euro 2025 trophy (Photo: Getty)It was hard to imagine that by the time Kelly, wildly hungover but still effervescent, was found yelling into a microphone outside Buckingham Palace in front of tens of thousands of people. A January move to Arsenal had saved her career. For the second time in three years, she had scored England’s winner in a European Championship final.
Souvenir shirts with her name sold out in a day. Up and down the country, people reenacted her skip-and-jump penalties. One of the sticks used to beat her with in the SPOTY discourse was the fact she did not start a single game at the summer tournament – which, on the contrary, makes her achievements all the more impressive.
To recap: at 2-0 down against Sweden in the quarter-finals, England were facing up to a humiliating early exit. Sarina Wiegman threw on Kelly more as a wildcard than anything else; within a minute, she had set up Lucy Bronze’s goal and kickstarted the Lionesses’ comeback.
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In the last four, England were again heading home, risking one of the biggest upsets in the history of women’s football as they trailed Italy. Kelly’s winner in extra time sent them to the final, where she assisted Alessia Russo’s equaliser and then slammed in the final penalty in the shootout.
Hannah Hampton, another SPOTY nominee, played no small part in that and of course won a domestic treble with Chelsea.
Yet Kelly lifting the Champions League with Arsenal felt even more significant, given Chelsea’s domestic dominance and for the manner in which it shifted the dial for an English club game that has not been able to match the preeminence of Barcelona for many years.
If it is not only the medals but the journey behind them that is to be judged, Kelly would surely have been a worthy winner.
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