Sports Personality Of The Year power surge for AP

SPOTY, as it shall now be referred to because, let’s be honest, it’s more than a mouthful let alone an eye-ful when appearing in print.

But why break with what is the norm and attempt to promote one particular winner? Well, it all stems from the vociferous campaign behind jumps jockey titan Tony McCoy.

The legendary AP, as he is affectionately known and not just in the racing media, has been backed by the racing industry’s knowledgeable fraternity from pundits to papers.

Even the feted York Racecourse and the esteemed Go Racing In Yorkshire organisation have put their considerable weight behind the slender frame of the abstemious jockey who has ridden the most winners in National Hunt history – topping 3,000 no less.

And last spring, the weight-defying jockey – McCoy barely exists on a few hundred calories a day – finally won the prize that eluded him for so long, the Grand National aboard Don’t Push It.

If there was any doubt then he was, at last, the real McCoy after a triumph as memorable as any in Aintree’s folklore.

As befits a candidate from the world of parade rings and winner’s enclosures, McCoy is listed as the favourite for tomorrow’s SPOTY gong.

But is that largely because of the bandwagon that has hitched itself to the Irishman’s star, or recognition of the equine feats he has accomplished in a long and distinguished career?

My feeling is that the beleaguered racing industry believes not only is McCoy a genuine contender, but that racing itself is after recognition.

So where does that leave the other nine candidates?

All have their merits and claims from world number one golfer Lee Westwood to US Open winner Graeme McDowell, both also Ryder Cup aces; diving prodigy Tom Daley; cricketer Graeme Swann; Tour de France sensation Mark Cavendish; Winter Olympics gold medallist Amy Williams; world heptathlon queen Jessica Ennis; world heavyweight boxing champion David Haye and 15-time world darts champion Phil Taylor.

With the McCoy campaign gathering momentum like the thundering of hooves will tomorrow’s ceremony at the LG Arena in Birmingham be merely a procession?

If so, does that mean the eventual outcome will have been determined on an almost militaristic manufactured gathering of groundswell support akin to last year’s Christmas hit single race won by Rage Against The Machine to the displeasure of X Factor devotees?

Previously, I’ve never cared a fig for who actually won the principal SPOTY prize, certainly not since I was a kid and the final selection would induce arguments in the playground.

SPOTY was always a comfy, fuzzy-edged companion to the then BBC’s monopoly of bizarre sporting events such as The Boat Race, Royal Ascot, Wimbledon and the Horse of the Year Show. Cue Mozart theme tune and hours of bloody equine tedium.

But while I do believe McCoy would be a worthy winner, his voluble backers have undermined the entire process.

So based on the Steve Webster principle, I am putting my slabs of flab behind chairman of the darts-board, Phil “The Power” Taylor.

The Webster principle? Yes, this refers to North Yorkshire’s very own tough of the track Steve Webster, who in the 1980s and 1990s ruled the world as its greatest driver of high-octane motor-bike sidecars. Webster, who was funded almost entirely from a family-backed team from his base in Alne, won no fewer than ten world crowns with several different co-drivers.

However, his achievements were too often dismissed in one television clip where his revving machine slid off the track at Assen and into a ditch to smug tee-heeing among the Beeb presenters.

While I do not even regard darts as a sport, more a pastime as this column has several times expounded, Taylor has bestrode his sport like a tungsten-wielding colossus.

It is time he got the recognition he deserves and, to boot, he even possesses a personality.

So pick up your phones and let’s initiate a nationwide power surge tomorrow night and, in the words of the immortal Sid Waddell, generate “a total eclipse of the darts”.