The credibility of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award was finally restored last night - 36 years after I dismissed it as a joke. The comedy goes back to 1971, when Princess Anne was crowned queen of sport for being the best of a handful of privileged multi-millionaires at riding a specially-conditioned horse over some sticks at Burghley. At least, that's how this particular cynic saw it.

Boxing legend Joe Calzaghe, a world champion for ten years and undefeated in his 44-fight professional career, was finally crowned King of Sport against all expectations - not least his own. After losing out ridiculously last year to Princess Anne’s daughter Zara Phillips (yes, another privileged woman on a horse), the paranoid Welshman believed he would never get the award because most of the voting public are English.

But the nationality card was certainly not in evidence as Calzaghe pipped Formula One’s Lewis Hamilton and fellow boxer and close friend Ricky Hatton for the crown, watched by an 8,000 audience at Birmingham‘s NEC arena plus millions watching on TV.

'The pity is that Calzaghe can’t line up a joust with Mayweather for the ''world’s greatest pound for pound boxer'' crown'


Sanity also prevailed in the sense that the public selected a genuine world champion rather than a young pretender like Hamilton, who had just missed out on the drivers‘ championship in his first season in F1.

As former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis handed Calzaghe the trophy in Las Vegas - where he had been supporting Hatton in his unsuccessful bid to topple world welterweight king Floyd Mayweather - he confessed: ‘’I said I didn’t care last year - but I lied!’’

However, there is little doubt that it hurt like hell to play second (or fourth or fifth) fiddle to the Queen’s granddaughter, golfer Darren Clarke and gymnast Beth Tweddle. But unlike her mother in 1971, at least Zara was a world champion in her own right - albeit of that same hoity-toity equestrian society.

OK, the winner of the BBC award is selected by viewers (if any phone-in vote can be believed as genuine these days). But I had despaired of down-to-earth Joe ever actually winning the crown - if only because most of the viewing public had never even heard of him.

To be honest, if I wasn’t from South Wales myself, I would probably know very little about the boy from Newbridge in Gwent. But I grew up in the next valley and have long been an admirer of the local boy made good, who is as proud of his Welshness as much as his Italian heritage. He’s only a headline grabber in a pure sporting sense - and like his boxing contemporary Hatton, completely unaffected by fame.

As far as the voting itself is concerned, the BBC announced that undisputed world super-middleweight champ Calzaghe won with 177,748 votes to Hamilton's 122,649 and Hatton's 85,280.

"I'm proud of it,’’ said Joe, whose trainer father Enzo was awarded the Coach of the Year trophy after building up a boxing stable which includes several other world champions. ‘’It's a real achievement and also with my dad winning tonight. To get two boxers in the top three is amazing.

‘’I'd like to say thank you very much to everybody who voted for me and hopefully next year I can have a great year again.’’

At 35, few would expect Calzaghe to remain at the top of the tree for much longer. The pity is that he can’t line up a joust with Mayweather for the ‘world’s greatest pound for pound boxer’ crown. But until flyweights can get into the ring with heavyweights, that will always be a mythical crown surmised by so-called experts.

In my eyes, Joe is already No.1 - but perhaps that’s just the old dragon in me talking.