Sports Personality Of The Year? Here’s why we should all vote for Anya Shrubsole

I’m going to cast a vote for someone competing in a TV show.

Normally, I’ll admit, this is way too much effort. And besides, what’s the point? I mean, seriously?

“Only YOUR vote can save your favourite,” the likes of Strictly Come Dancing’s Claudia Winkleman are forever insisting.

But with all due respect, that’s twaddle, isn’t it?

My own Strictly favourite this year, for example, has been Gemma Atkinson.

And yet she’s made it all the way to the final without me once bothering to pick up the phone or go online to vote.

Likewise, my I’m A Celeb favourite, Toff, took the jungle crown without the slightest help from me.

But then the TV show I’m actually talking about here – the one that’s actually motivated me to vote – isn’t a reality show as such.

Is it Lewis Hamilton, for winning the F1 title again?

Well, obviously not.

Formula One bores the absolute tits off me.

(Look, there go my absolute tits right now, falling off and dropping to the floor at the very mention of it. Please try not to tread on them.)

Or Sir Mo for all that running he does? Or Harry Kane for all his kicking?

Or Anthony Joshua for all his punching? Or Chris Froome for riding his bicycle jolly blooming fast?

Nope, none of that lot. Fine folk, I’ve no doubt, but they don’t really need help from the likes of me when it comes to picking up awards.

OK, look, I’ll cut to the chase, shall I, rather than running through the whole list?

It’s Anya Shrubsole, all right? She’s the one I’m going to vote for as Sports Personality of the Year.

“Anya who?” I’m guessing some may ask.

To which I’ll reply: “Anya Shrubsole” (because never let it be said I don’t give straight answers).

Anya, if you’re not aware, or even if you are, was a member of the England women’s cricket team that won the World Cup at Lord’s this summer, beating visitors India in dramatic fashion.

But she was more than just a team member.

It was Anya’s amazing six-wicket haul that turned this match around when all seemed lost.

And trust me, you didn’t need to be a cricket fan to get caught up in the excitement.

This was genuinely breathtaking stuff.

Proper human drama, the way the best sport should always be, rather than the bloated, greed-driven, billy-big-boots willy-waving (and the playground whining) that we’re mostly subjected to these days.

So yes, I’d love to see this award go to Anya Shrubsole – a talented, passionate, genuinely inspiring sportsperson.

But it’s a long shot, I’m well aware, given the big names she’s up against on Sunday night.

And I’m not sure I can do a lot to help.

I’ve a feeling you can influence votes quite heavily nowadays with the strategic use of social media, but knowing me I’d go and screw that up and accidentally get her elected Prime Minister.

She’d hate me for that.

On a more manageable level, I was thinking of raising her profile by running my own Anya Shrubsole-themed competition, maybe inviting people to come up with the cleverest anagram by rearranging the letters of her name.

That would be fun.

But then, to test this out, I worked out a few Anya Shrubsole anagrams for myself and soon realised this would be asking for trouble.

So in the end I’ve decided just to keep this simple.

Please vote for Anya if you care about sport for all the right reasons.

Please tell others to do the same.

And, er, that’s basically it.

Oh come on, it might work, you never know.

At the time of writing, Anya Shrubsole is 100/1 to be voted Sports Personality of the Year for 2017.

But knowing how influential I tend to be in such matters, I reckon by Sunday night I’ll have helped make her 200/1 at the very least.