Since it began in 1954, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award – originally the Sports Review of the Year Award – has engendered debate and disagreement.

What do you mean "No it hasn't?" I insist it has.

Even the original award looked, and still looks, debateable, given that, in the year Roger Bannister produced the athletics equivalent of climbing Mount Everest by running the first sub-four minute mile, the dear old silver-plated four-turret lens camera - as we don't know it - was presented to Bannister's chum and fellow runner Christopher Chataway.

The latter, of course, had played a telling part in the former's achievement by pacing the early part of that iconic race at Iffley Road, Oxford along with Chris Brasher. But his primacy was established on the basis of his feat in the London versus Moscow match at the White City, where he tracked the European champion, Vladimir Kuts, until the final few strides of the 5,000 metres before bursting past to win, taking five seconds off the world record as he did so.

It was a stupendous piece of running. But Bannister's was a momentous piece of running.

Roger Bannister breaks the Four Minute Mile in 1954. It wasn't quite enough to earn him the BBC award, but good try  Hulton Archive ©Hulton Archive

By the end of 1954, not only had Bannister produced his historic flourish at Oxford, but he had also won what has come to be known as the Miracle Mile at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, where he beat the Australian who had surpassed his world record mark, John Landy. And he had followed up three weeks later by taking the European 1500m title in a championship record time.

Two factors clearly told in favour of the dashing Chataway - his race was fresher in the minds of the public, as it took place four months after the Four Minute Mile. And it was broadcast live on TV, going out across Europe to a record audience of 12 million viewers.

Chris Chataway beats Vladimir Kuts at the White City. This was enough to win the BBC award
©Hulton Archive

Sadly for Bannister, the Good Sports Awards were not created until 1990 - for one year only - and in any case he would not have qualified as, unlike all four recipients, he had not been involved in a high speed motor racing accident. Had those awards been in existence then, however, he would surely have received one, given that he was graciousness itself during the live broadcast from the Savoy Hotel where he was asked, as runner-up, to present the award to the winner.

In retrospect, that was probably where it all went wrong for Bannister, who had to content himself in later life with becoming a distinguished neurologist and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford.

Since that contentious start, the annual awards - which this year mark their 60th anniversary - have created a sequence of questionable results. Two that spring to mind - 1997, when the affable, naturalised Canadian Greg Rusedski got the winner's camera after finishing runner-up in the US Open, and 2009, when veteran Manchester United player Ryan Giggs got the award the year after his team had won the European Cup, with Jenson Button, who had finally secured the Formula One world title, pushed down to second place.

Ryan Giggs, a great footballer admittedly, won the BBC Sports Personality Award in 2009 for no apparent reason ahead of Formula 1 champion Jenson Button ©Getty Images


The awards have also involved a proliferation of categories over the years. Aside from the rash of Good Sports which broke out in 1990 there have been other one-offs. In 1969, for instance, having guided Leeds United to the League title, Don Revie was given the Manager of the Year award. In its splendid isolation, it now appears like the Don Revie Award for being Don Revie.

In 1983, in a fit of generosity, the event bestowed upon Alan Bond and his crew on Australia II the International Team Award, nominally for winning the America's Cup but in effect for giving their complacent US rivals a well-merited putdown.

Alan Bond was honoured for skippering the Australia II boat to the America's Cup - ahead of America @Getty Images

In retrospect, too, the one-off Special Team Award given to the British men's 4x400m relay squad after their victory at the 1986 European Championships looks like a warm-hearted indulgence. But then athletics, for whatever reason, has proved far and away the most popular sport over the years as far as BBC viewers have been concerned.

Track and field has garnered more than twice as many first places as its nearest rival, Formula One - 17 to six, with football and boxing joint third with five. Its pre-eminence is even more overwhelming when the total number of "podium placings" is taken into account, with athletics earning 46 total placings to F1's 13 and football's 20.

Cricket and cycling are currently joint third in the overall winners' rankings with four victories apiece. But tennis, now on three winners, looks likely to be joining them once the envelope has been opened at the First Direct Arena in Leeds on December 15.

Andy Murray has already been installed as 1-40 favourite after becoming the first British man to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936.

If that landslide comes to pass, Sir Ben Ainslie would surely be left wondering what he has to do to win having followed a fourth Olympic sailing gold with an inspirational performance which prompted Team Origin to return from the - metaphorical - sea bed to win the America's Cup. Cue debate and disagreement...

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £12.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.