Sports Personality of the Year

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John Surtees 1959

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Surrey-born John Surtees has the distinction of being the only person ever to have won the Grand Prix World Championship, now the MotoGP World Championship, and the Formula One World Drivers’ Championship. However, in 1959, it was after a dominant season on two wheels that he was voted Sportsview Personality of the Year, as BBC Sports Personality of the Year was known at the time. Manchester United and England footballer Bobby Charlton finished second in the public poll, for the second year running, with the 1957 winner, swimmer Ian Black, in third.

The awards ceremony was staged at BBC Television Centre for the first time and, introduced by a fanfare of trumpets, as was customary in those days, Surtees duly accepted his trophy from host Peter Dimmock. In his acceptance speech he said, “…I would like to point out that motorcycling, although, perhaps, we get all the publicity, is also a team game and behind my effort there are the mechanics, designers and some very enthusiastic people who think very much of the sport.”

Racing for high-end Italian maufacturer, Meccanica Verghera (MV) Agusta, Surtees won all seven races in the 500cc class of the Grand Prix World Championship and all six races in the 350cc class to top the standings in both classes, as he had done in 1958. Indeed, he would do so again in 1960, for the third year running, earning the nickname ‘Figlio del Vento’ or, in English, ‘Son of the Wind’.

Thereafter, Surtees turned his attention to Formula One, making his debut, for Team Lotis, in the BRDC International Trophy, a non-championship race, at Silverstone on May 14, 1960. Four years later, driving for Scuderia Ferrari, he won the German and Italian Grands Prix and won the Formula One World Drivers’ Championship by a single point from compatriot Graham Hill, with defending champion Jim Clark completing a British 1-2-3 in the final standings.

Surtees retired from competitive driving in 1972. By that stage, he had long been a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) and was subsequently upgraded to OBE in the 2008 Birthday Honours and, again, to CBE in the 2016 New Years Homours for sevices to motorsport. He died, from respiratory failure, in March 2017, aged 83.

Jim Laker 1956

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In 1956, Yorkshire-born cricketer James Charles ‘Jim’ Laker won Sports Review of the Year, better known nowadays as BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY), in recognition of his exemplary performance in the Ashes series. A right-arm offbreak bowler, Laker took a record 46 wickets in the five-match series – which England eventually won 2-1, thereby retaining the Ashes – at an average of 9.60. However, he delivered his coup de grace in the fourth Test at Old Trafford, Manchester in late July, which henceforth became known as ‘Laker’s Match’.

With the Ashes series tied at 1-1, England won the toss and elected to bat first, posting a total of 459 all out in the first innings. Before tea on the second day, Australia were 62-2 in reply, but thereafter collapsed, in dramatic fashion, to 84 all out. Laker took the last seven wickets for eight runs in 22 balls for figures of 9-37 in the first innings as a whole. The remaining wicket fell to orthodox left-arm spinner Tony Lock, who took 1-37 in his 14 overs.

Following on, Australia fared better in the second innings, but still only reached a total of 205 all out, thereby giving England victory by an innings and 170 runs. In a hitherto unprecedented display, Laker bowled 51.2 overs, 23 over which maidens, and took all 10 second innings wickets for 53 runs. He thus became the first bowler to take all 10 wickets in a single Test innings and his overall match bowling figures, of 19-90 off 68, still rank as the finest in the history of not just Test cicket, but all forms of first-class cricket. Decades later, no other bowler has taken more than 17 wickets in any first-class match.

Interestingly, representing his county, Surrey (for whom he played between 1946 and 1959), in a tour match against the Australians at the Oval in May 1956, Laker also took 10-88 in the first innings. He duly collected his BBC SPOTY award at the Grosvenor Hotel in London and went on to claim 193 wickets in just 46 Test matches for England, confirming his status as one of the finest spin bowlers in cricket history.

David Hemery 1968

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In 1968, athlete David Hemery was voted BBC Personality of the Year after winning the gold medal in the 400m hurdles at the Summer Olympics. Indeed, in the final, at the Estadio Olímpico Universitario in Mexico City on October 15, Hemery ran 48.12 second, beating his nearest pursuers – Gerhard Hennige of West Germany and compatriot John Sherwood – by nearly a second and setting a new world record in the process. In the public poll, Hemery finished ahead of Graham Hill, who won his second Formula One World Drivers’ Championship, following the deaths of his Lotus teammates Jim Clark early in the year, and Marion Coakes, who won the silver medal in individual show jumping at Mexico 1968.

By that stage of his career, Hemery had already won the gold medal in the 120yd hurdles at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica in 1966 and would go on to defend that title in the newly-metricated 110m hurdles in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1970. He would also win the silver medal in the 110m hurdles at the European Athletics Championships in Athens, Greece in 1969 and two more Olympic medals – silver in the 4 x 400m and bronze in the 400m hurdles – at Munich 1972.

Victory in the 400m hurdles at Mexico 1968 was historically significant, not just because of the world-record time, but because, as the first Briton to win since David Burghley at London 1928, Hemery broke the American strangehold on the event. His winning time would remain a world record for four years and a British record for 22 years. Fittingly, he was presented with his Olympic gold medal by David Burghley and with the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award by Australian Ron Clarke, one of the best-known middle- and long-distance runners of his era.

Hemery retired from international competition in 1972, but later coached at Boston University, was elected inaugural president of UK Athletics, aka British Athletics, and served as vice chairman of the British Olympic Association (BOA). He was created a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), for services to athletics, in the 1969 New Year Honours.

Ian Black 1958

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In 1958, 17-year-old swimmer Ian Black became, and remains, the youngest winner of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) after an exemplary year in which he won six major championship medals, four of them gold. Black topped the public poll ahead of two footballers, Bobby (later Sir Bobby) Charlton of Manchester United and Nat Lofthouse of Bolton Wanderers. Charlton had survived the Munich Air Disaster, at Munich-Riem Airport in Munich,West Germany the previous Februrary, which resulted in 23 fatalities, including eight of his Manchester United teammates. Lofthouse, on the other hand, had scored both goals in a 2-0 win, ironically over Manchester United, in the FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium in May and made his final appearance for the England national team in November.

Born in Inverness, Scotland on June 27, 1941, Black represented his home nation at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, Wales, where he won the gold medal in the 220yd butterfly, silver in the 440yd freestyle and silver again in the 4 x 220yd freestyle relay. Shortly afterwards, Black represented Great Britain at the 1958 European Swmming Championships in Budapest, Hungary, where he won further gold medals in the 400m freestyle, 1500m freestyle and 200m butterfly events.

By the time he collected the SPOTY Award, following in the footsteps of the 1957 winner, Ryder Cup captain Dai Rees – who, coincidentally, at the age of 44, remains the oldest ever winner – Black had already made himself a headline name at home and abroad. In 1959, again in Cardiff, he swam the 400m individual medley in a time of 5:08.8, thereby taking over four seconds off the previous world record. Black also represented Great Britain at the 1960 Summer Olympics, reaching the finals of the 400m freestyle, 4 x 200m freestyle relay and 4 x 100m medley relay. In the former event, he actually swam 4:21.8, the same time as the eventual bronze medallist, John Konrads of Australia, but was judged to have finished fourth in a photo finish. Black retired from competitive swimming in June 1962 at the age of just 21.