Football has tended to be under-represented in the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year awards, partly due to the fact team games do not always advance individuals for special recognition and partly because it has been a while since teams made the sort of statement beyond these shores that they did in 1966 or 1999.
Traditionally the award for team of the year has gone to World Cup winners or significant European champions such as Celtic in 1967 and Manchester United a year later. There has been only one team of the year winner from football this millennium, and you could be forgiven for forgetting which one. Don’t bother looking it up, Gérard Houllier’s Liverpool were awarded the prize in 2001 for winning both domestic cups and the Uefa trophy.
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