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The High Green lads were favourites to win the 拢20,000 top prize for the album "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" in London on Tuesday night.
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Lead singer and songwriter Alex Turner, nationally noted for his Steel City no-nonsense lyrics about Sheffield life said: "We deserved it because we had the best record."

The band had been mounting a large local and online following before bursting onto the international scene with the single "I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor". The release went to straight to number one, as their album did.
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"Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" smashed records for sales, with 360,000 sold in the first week after its release in January this year.
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The Mercury Prize is one of Britain's main music awards. Set up in 1992, previous winners have included locals Pulp, the legendry Primal Scream, Suede and Franz Ferdinand to name but a few.

The Monkeys picked-up their third award, having already been handed industry recognition as the Best Breakthrough Band in the Brit Awards and Best British Band and Best Newcomers in the NME Awards this year.

Alex and Jamie on stage

Picking up the award, lead singer Alex Turner said, "Thanks to everyone that's helped us, we're very pleased with it 'cause it's just like good tunes really, it's what like we tried to do. And no tricks really 'cause there's too many people trying to do too many tricks."

Historically the pre-ceremony favourite never wins the prize, but the 'Monkeys have broken the deadlock. There were opinions suggesting they wouldn't win the award because they were just so popular, being the creators of the fastest selling debut album of all time.

The Mercury judges always like to stress their decision is based purely on the music, not the hype, sales, or fan base, saying about the debut album: "great songs astonishingly performed".

"We're only concerned with what's on the album, It's irrelevant who they are, how much they'd like to win, whether we've seen them live at Reading or not, whether they need more sales," said chair of the jury Simon Frith.

"We're only concerned with, 'does this album make sense as an album'? It makes you realise that people can still take the pop song and use it to write about their lives, in ways that are creative, funny, touching, angry, the sort of things we'd normally apply to a novelist."

Richard at the Mercury Awards in London

Fellow Sheffield musician Richard Hawley was another favourite to win with his album 'Coles Corner' receiving critical acclaim. Hawley did get a mention, as the Monkeys graced the stage Turner commented: "Dial 999, Richard Hawley's been robbed."

The lads were, as usual, monkeying about with the press, they shunned the media on the red carpet run, and make a mockery of the journalists at the post-award conference, ribbing their obvious questions... bringing a bit of mayhem and rock 'n' roll cliches back into the proceedings.

Post-award statement

The band released the following statement a day after the award's ceremony:

"We had a fantastic night and we're really chuffed with winning the award.听It was unexpected but it means a lot to us as the competition was from other musicians we really respect.听We strongly believe in the ethos of the Nationwide Mercury Prize in that it is about the music and not everything else that goes with it and are therefore really flattered by the decision.

"Regarding the 拢20,000 cheque, we are going to donate it to a worthy charity which we would prefer to keep private.听We have discussed it with Andy who played an equal part in the making of the album and he is happy with our choice.

"As for the near future, we are really looking forward to taking a break to continue writing our new album".