It probably means little to some people but conversely, some are very vocal about SPOTY and their selection process given how snooker stars (and the sport in general) has been overlooked for the past three decades. Nevertheless, snooker has found itself back in the Sports Personality spotlight, which hopefully will give a lot of outside viewers a reason to tune into BBC or Eurosport for a ranking event or two.
SPOTY dates back to 1954 – the year where Sir Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile barrier (earning a nomination for the award) and has since been recognising fellow athletes across a wide array of sports, primarily athletics, cycling, tennis and formula 1. It wasn’t until the golden age of snooker during the 1980s where a young up-and-comer by the name of Steve Davis would earn himself a record five top three finishes within SPOTY across the decade. Lewis Hamilton is joint alongside Davis with this record…for the moment.
Alex Higgins seemed a suitable choice for a SPOTY nomination given his moniker as The People’s Champion. Higgins gained the nomination in 1982, the same year he won his second World Championship, but lost out to gold medal decathlete, Daley Thompson. Following Higgins, Davis was the only person to secure SPOTY nominations where he eventually won the prize in 1988, thanks to his stellar performance in capturing the entire Triple Crown that season – and being the first player to do so.
Only one other snooker player had been nominated for SPOTY following Davis and Higgins. If you didn’t know beforehand, you’d be correct in assuming that it was Stephen Hendry. In 1990, Hendry matched Davis’ achievement of gathering all the majors under his belt that season. This warranted a SPOTY nomination in which he lost out to footballer, Paul Gascoigne.
And that leads us to 2020. For thirty years, snooker had not even seen a hint of recognition when it related to SPOTY, as it was overshadowed by many other sports. This wasn’t down to an absence of characters or moments, which were plentiful throughout the decades, but perhaps because of the sport not having the same staying power that it once had in the 1980/90s.
There had been a lot of debate recently, particularly over the past few years as to why Ronnie O’Sullivan specifically hadn’t been nominated given how dominant he has been whilst chipping away at the records held by his predecessors. But I think O’Sullivan said it best in that it wasn’t anything against him necessarily (although, I imagine that would be a slight part of it), but rather where snooker is on the pecking order.
Snooker was such a force in the 1980/90s, similar to how tennis and golf are nowadays whereas, snooker has faded in the background by comparison. It was well put by O’Sullivan that during the 1980s, most people knew who Davis was, regardless of whether they were snooker fans or not. The same can’t really be said about any players of the current crop. Whether that’s down to snooker having a lack of characters or not being high up the ladder relative to other sports, is down to a matter of opinion.
Despite all this, SPOTY 2020 has decided to include O’Sullivan off the back of his sixth WSC win and 37th ranking title as he reached the final six candidates. Personally, I’m indifferent to whether O’Sullivan wins or not because I, as many other snooker fans, know of his wizardry on the table and how brilliant he actually is, even if those outside the sport don’t. And he doesn’t need a long, overdue award to tell him that.
Secondly, while the ‘P’ in SPOTY stands for ‘Personality’, it also stands for ‘Popularity’, which is how the eventual winner gets chosen. Due to how snooker is ranked against other sports, it’s likely that a snooker player – even one with global recognition like O’Sullivan – will get outvoted by a sport with a significantly larger fan base.
But what I’m positive about when it comes to O’Sullivan’s SPOTY nomination is that hopefully it will shine a light back on snooker once again. Maybe it will remind people that snooker is still going strong and encourage them to tune in if they see that O’Sullivan is still lifting titles. Maybe they’ll accidently switch channels and see Judd Trump making the cue ball fly around the table and this will pique their curiosity. Anything that brings more eyes to a deserving sport gets a yes from me. In which case, I thank O’Sullivan for winning the World Championship, because who knows when the next snooker nomination would have ever arrived?
Side note: this Short post was written prior to the results of SPOTY but will likely be posted the week after the winner is announced.
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