Ahead of the announcement of the SJA British Sports Awards 2024 winners on Sky Sports on Wednesday 20 November, SJA secretary Philip Barker looks back on a televised edition of the ceremony in 1978…
The first time our awards were televised, they made headlines across the country after one of the biggest stars refused to accept an award.
The year was 1978, the 30th year of what was then known as the “Sports Writers’ Association”.
Chairman Alan Hughes, promised that “through the medium of Thames Television and and the ITV network, the awards this year will receive the national prestige that the many distinguished past winners have accorded them.”
The television coverage had been arranged through Sam Leitch, then Thames Television’s Head of Sport. Leitch had previously been well known in Fleet Street and then at the Beeb where he combined executive duties with presenting Football Preview, the forerunner of Football Focus.
“They are awards that really count, for no one sees more of sport’s greatest moments than the sportswriter,” insisted the TV Times.
The event was hosted by top television football commentator Brian Moore and World of Sport presenter Dickie Davies and took place at the Cunard International Hotel in London but the one star they were unable to welcome was Steve Ovett.
The menu for the event hinted at the difficulty with a small footnote.
“Steve Ovett who was named in the top six of the poll, designed to accept an award from the SWA,” although cartoonist Roy Ullyett’s menu card asked somewhat mischievously “Will Steve talk if he wins?”
Although a great rivalry with Seb Coe on the track was in its infancy, Ovett’s difficult relationship with some sections of the media was already fully formed.
“He has often upset journalists with his attitude following big meetings,” reported Terry Smith in the Daily Mirror.
A statement issued by his mother Gay set out the Ovett position.
“Stephen and the family cannot see how he can accept an award from the Sports Writers’ Association considering the coverage he has received from the athletics section of the press. Naturally he is very honoured to have been voted in the poll but feels that he was unable to accept in the circumstances.”
The Mirror’s back page included an assessment from Frank McGhee: “He can’t blame those of us who consider his attitude a wee bit churlish and childish of him.”
Ovett’s gold at 1500m had been just about the only bright spot of the 1978 European Athletics Championships in Prague. Along with Coe, he had opted to miss the Commonwealth Games, held in the Canadian city of Edmonton a month before. In those days, the Europeans were then the most prestigious athletics competition outside the Olympics.
In Prague, Coe had been edged out by East German Olaf Beyer at 800m and the late Geoff Capes had been disqualified from the shot put final after an argument with an official.
“These Championships are doomed,” declared BBC TV commentator David Coleman as competitors tumbled at a barrier in the steeplechase.
In the decathlon, Daley Thompson was defeated by Soviet Aleksandr Grebenyuk. His Commonwealth gold, the first of three, saw him crowned SWA Sportsman of the Year.
The runners-up were Ian Botham and Kevin Keegan. Brendan Foster, Lester Piggott and Allan Wells were also on the shortlist.
Sharron Davies, then aged only 15, was our Sportswoman of 1978. She won gold in both individual medley events in Edmonton. “She sailed home like the ships in her native Plymouth,” said legendary BBC radio commentator Peter Jones.
Fellow Commonwealth gold medallist Tessa Sanderson and round-the-world sailor Naomi James were runners-up. Also in the shortlist were badminton’s Gillian Gilks alongside two more from athletics, Donna Hartley and Sonia Lannaman.
The team of the year went to Liverpool Football Club for the second successive year. They had beaten Bruges in the European Cup final, the first British team to lift the trophy in successive years. The other contenders were Britain’s Davis Cup team, finalists for the first time since the days of Fred Perry.
This was to the chagrin of Nottingham Post sports writer Harry Davies, who felt Nottingham Forest were unjustly passed over. Forest won the League title a year after promotion and also won the League Cup.
“If I was a Forest official, I’d harbour a sense of grievance, I would like to know on what grounds, the SWA were able to decide that Liverpool held the edge over Forest in achievement,” ventured Davies.
Forest were to be voted our Team of the Year in 1979 and 1980 after emulating Liverpool’s European feats.
Sir Arnold Beckett, a chemist known for his work on doping in sport won the JL Manning Award.
Amongst the “added delights” acknowledged in the menu that night were cigarettes and cigars from John Player and Sons.
The star prize in the raffle was a 600-watt microwave oven provided by Philips Electrical.
The menu also revealed that the Bill McGowran Award was won by weightlifter Ralph Rowe. Originally from Jamaica, he injured his back in an industrial accident but represented Great Britain in six Paralympic Games and won gold in 1972.
That night, the awards were transmitted after News at Ten after an evening of ITV fare which included a Variety Club tribute to Morecambe and Wise. Also scheduled was the World Disco Dancing Championships which for some reason took precedence over our awards on the front cover.
In those days, the Sports Awards were held in the evening. A menu of Avocado pear, Trout Amandine, Veal escalope and Banana Surprise was followed by dancing to the “Alan Hartwell Showband.”
By this time, one hopes the television cameras had long packed up and left. I doubt there were many budding Travoltas in Fleet Street back then.
Watch the SJA British Sports Awards 2024 on Sky Sports News and follow through the day on Sky Sports social channels on Wednesday 20 November.
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