Sports people you feel should have got

Knighted or made a Dame and haven’t?

I have had a genuine belief for years (and I don’t think “he doesn’t live in the UK" or “he’s Canadian" cuts it.) that Lennox Lewis who I still see as our greatest ever heavyweight, well and truly deserves recognition in the form of a Knighthood.

It’s 20 years come November since he became undisputed heavyweight champion of the world for goodness sake. This was a man who we were happy to have representing us at the time. At a time when there was an American dominance in the division, he took the best America had to offer, on his own back yard/nation twice and beat him twice. I know the history books say the first match was a draw before somebody says Lewis won both fights imo and nothing and nobody could convince me otherwise.

Linford Christie. Another man who broke the American dominance in his specialist field. Held all 4 (what we consider) major titles at the same time and ducked nobody. I don’t know if it was lack of humility or just tongue in cheek but I did not like Carl Lewis’s comments about Christie when he received that ban for that one off race after he’d retired when he’d taken some sort of medicine which he had not checked. Carl said

“I knew he could not have beaten me without cheating".

No he could Carl and in 1993 he did it every time he raced you. If he were cheating it would have come out. He got temporarily stripped of his silver in 1988 and then reinstated when it was proven to be wrong.

Between 1992 and 1994 Christie was the best in the world and we were proud to have him racing for us. Again no offer of a Knighthood.

And Daley Thompson. Won and successfully defended his Olympic title.


Ladies who I think should have been made Dames?

Denise Lewis (if Jessica Ennis-Hill got one) Rebecca Adlington (hey Kelly Holmes got one for winning 2 golds at the same Olympics) And Christine Ohuruogu who came within a breath of successfully defending her Olympic title.

I get you can’t just hand out gongs willy-nilly well not unless you’re trying to push through your Brexit deal.

But in the light of the passing of possibly the greatest goalkeeper England have produced and probably will remain the only goalkeeper to win a major trophy with England, it got me thinking. We don’t reward our sporting heroes enough in this country.

Probably the wrong choice of words when you think of what modern day footballers etc get paid, but I know what I mean

And I get we don’t treat our war veterans etc well enough etc. I’m just looking at it from a sports point of view at this time.