So my colleague Donna Gee doesn't think Zara Phillips is worthy of the Sports Personality of the Year Award. The public disagree. The royal eventing rider won the poll by a fair old margin, polling more than 32 percent of the 680,000 votes cast, well ahead of the favourite, Darren Clarke, who pulled in 21 percent.
Phillips is only the third eventing rider in history to hold the world and European titles at the same time. Not a bad achievement for a 'toff'. Now being a meat-and-two-veg football/cricket fanatic, I know absolutely nothing about equestrianism or eventing or show jumping - these sports hold about as much interest for me as an evening with Stephen Hawking would.

But there is a very important issue at stake here. Donna refers to 'mass appeal' sports, and by that I think she means football, cricket, rugby, tennis and golf. But does she think those sports have some kind of divine right to be at the top of every award ceremony? Don't we get enough of the blabbering nonsense spoken by football managers and players alike (in English about on a par with the level of Ms Phillips' horse)? Haven't we been 'Ashes-ed out' with all the hype surrounding what is shaping up to be the most one-sided series of all time?

For me, the great thing about Phillips' victory is the very fact that it will make the so-called mass appeal sports take a long hard look at what they really stand for. Yes, it may well be in the interests of PR agencies and Christmas publishers that Wayne, Sir Alex, Freddie, Tim or Audley (now that would be a laugh) wins the coveted BBC award. Sadly, that is the route we have been taking for some time, with £30k a month retainers for some stupid Soho agency full of designer glasses and coiffured sideburns making sure that Chelsea are on Pages 1-30 of every tabloid and broadsheet in the country.

But surely the very essence of sport is that it is a healthy activity that gets people off their settees being proactive and enjoying themselves. To do that, it does not matter if the sport is horse jumping, darts, swimming, water skiing or the triathlon. And to be world champion in any of those sports takes a monumental amount of training and dedication. Zara Phillips is not world champion because she is the Queen's granddaughter, she is world champion because she is bloody good at what she does.

There is another issue to take into account. We are so obsessed in this country with the mass-appeal sports, that other sports never get any meaningful publicity. When was the last time you saw a feature in a British tabloid about, say, speedway or badminton? How many billiards players can you name?

Donna is right that Phillips' award victory shows the paucity of talent and achievement in the mass-appeal British sports – but for the wrong reason. The obsession of a celebrity-fuelled media to ensure football remains high and mighty at the top of the pyramid, while the bit-part sports grovel around for a bit of recognition, is the real embarrassment of British sport.