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Footballers aren't held up as the greatest of role models these days - but then anyone who swaggers around late night hot spots with a bevy of beauties in tow and a Champagne tab opened at the bar deserves a bit of derision. Not so much Premier League striker as wannabe , some of 'em.
Giggs prepares to bare all after scoring against Arsenal in 1999
I can't remember Giggs ever getting himself in the papers for owt other than his football. He had a (or Nookie Behr, as a mate once optimistically called her) but that wasn't for long. Then there was the shirt-off celebration of that epic winner against Arsenal in the FA Cup semi-final - my first unsettling experience of .

(Incidentally, can we just allow players to whip their tops off when they bag a last minute equaliser? For goodness sake, do administrators understand nothing about football's passions? Besides which, it would bring in a whole load more fans to the women's game.)

Giggs won the award for being a fine, talented and utterly professional human being. It was a bit unfair that when Lineker asked him how he kept going so well, Giggs said something about 'looking after himself' and they went to a cutaway of one Freddie Flintoff. By way of contrast, I presume.

Anyway, I'm chuffed for the bloke. So much for this country's anti-United bias, eh? Although somehow, Retail Opticians Poster Boy Capello (one successful qualifying campaign) pipped the Govan Growler Fergie (gazillions of trophies and an ability to bend time to his will) to the Coach of the Year.

I was pleased that Giggs pipped Button too. I've got nowt against Button particularly, it's just the difference between winning and losing at F1 level has nowt to do with the driver. He should be handing his award on to the Brawn double diffuser, I reckon. Lance Armstrong's autobiography was called 'It's Not About the Bike'. Jenson's is going to be called 'It IS about the car'.

Button paid tribute to the team that got him his World Championship. And . Maybe Giggs's unswerving loyalty got him a few more votes 'n' all.

As for the other contenders, well I voted for Jessica Ennis, but I confess I wasn't voting with just my mind. David Haye revealed that at an early age he realised he could 'punch really hard' so he thought he'd keep doing that. I found a similarly prodigious ability for ducking and have been just as dedicated to it.

Beth Tweddle looked horrendously nervous in the initial line-up, and supremely relaxed at the prospect of standing in her gymslip and doing loads of tipple-tails. It strikes me that one of the first thing a gymnast gets trained to do is a rather rubbish 360 degree wave.

I was surprised Straussy wasn't in the top three. But then his England did win team of the year, which, given the women's cricket team won everything they went in for, seemed a tad harsh. Mind you, why them lasses had to come on stage dressed as staid 1950's cabin crew was slightly beyond me.

The Beeb have turned this end-of-year fest into a right big number now. They managed to fit 11,000 people into that Bond enemy warehouse in Sheffield and I have to say I didn't recognise half of the ones they kept showing applauding. (Mind you, if that was Cavendish's lass they kept showing I'm not surprised he's in a hurry to finish his races.)

They always seem to build in an element of danger into the whole event, mind. This year it was a staircase that wouldn't have looked out of place on an abseiling training wall. Gifted, wonderfully lithe athletes descended this flight like timid mincing jessies.

I do love this programme, though, mainly 'cos it reminds you of what we've forgotten, not least during which my missus asked me why Watson always wears that turtle neck sweater and I had to tell the silly mare that that was his real neck.
Tom Watson lost the 2009 Open by a neck
No mention of Tiger. I suppose it'd be difficult to show clips of the philanderer at the mo. Even Peter Alliss saying summat innocent like "Here's Tiger Woods on the 10th" would have a whole new set of connotations. And why let Woods ruin a celebration of the mighty Seve?

Let's be clear. Golf is a pretty damn tedious game at the best of times. Hit tiny ball with silly stick into miniscule hole half a mile away. And take half the day doing it. It's like geriatric orienteering with mowed bits to show you where to go next.

But even I sat up and watched when Ballesteros wielded a club. He turned a clunky bit of metal into a musketeer's epee. No one, bar possibly a spurned golf professional's wife (allegedly), has flashed a five-iron to such extraordinary effect.

It was wonderful too that Olazabal could hardly keep it together, that the award was (an antidote to the in-hangar light show and crashing music) and that Olly put a Steve McClarenish 'shh' to an 's' when he said: "I do have someone very special sitting next to me."

Suffice to say this is the sort of stuff that can make even a Teessider well up. It's come to the point now where the Lifetime Achievement Award is surpassing the main one - in fact given Giggsy won the main one, perhaps there were two Lifetime Achievement Awards given on Sunday night!