Saints Rattle a few Cages

"Fix", "Swindle" were the cries that surrounded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremony in Birmingham last week.





As St Helens walked away with the Team of the Year and Coach of the Year awards for 2006, some people were not so congratulatory. OK, so Paul Sculthorpe is about as eloquent as an alcoholic on Christmas Eve and Sean Long might have looked entirely out of place surrounded by such sophisticated company but that doesn't detract from the achievements of the St Helens class of 2006.

The BBC have come out and defended the public voting system after various claims of rigging and suggestions that the voting system is open to abuse from Internet campaigns, stating that they will be retaining the voting system that clinched the night's major gong for Zara Phillips as well as seeing St Helens amass just over 67.6% of the public vote for team of the year, well ahead of Sussex County Cricket Club (17.1%) and the Ryder Cup boys (15.2%).

The Ryder cup apologists were distraught. Not only did Darren Clarke not win the individual prize, they were outraged that a European team didn't win the 'British Team of the Year' award by virtue of the fact that they beat an inept bunch of American golfers on a boozy week in Ireland.

So all the while the Southern-centric press start crying on their keyboards and typing with rage, we can sit back safe in the knowledge that the game isn't as 'minority' as those at Fleet Street like to think it is.