I am not sure whether this website carries a great deal of weight with the honours committee. In fact, I am certain that it carries no weight whatsoever with anyone, but just in case, I am asking you – please! – to do the decent thing in this year’s New Year’s Honours List: give Andy Murray the knighthood he so richly deserves.
This is no ordinary sportsman: Andy Murray is a great sportsman. He is one of the greatest tennis players who ever lived. This year alone he won Wimbledon (for the second time), an Olympic Gold (for the second time), took Britain to the semi-finals of the Davis Cup which we were defending from last time and he finished the year as number one player In The World.
At a time when the country knights Lynton Crosby for being David Cameron’s spin doctor and Philip Green retains his knighthood (how?) the entire honours system surely stands at a crossroads. Despite numerous efforts in recent years, awards are still scarred by those who get gongs for just doing their jobs, for being politically useful and for being someone else’s mate.
Murray has got where he is because he is good at tennis and because he has worked harder at his game than anyone else in the world. I was such a tit when I disliked him for jokingly suggesting he wanted the England team to lose a football match (he was about 18 at the time) and I feel thoroughly embarrassed for feeling that way. I have finally grown up, a million miles from the spotlight he has had to put up with since he was very young, and I grew up a million years after him too.
I am not sure if we shall ever see his like again and that’s why we should share in his brilliance and rejoice in his success. Nothing lasts forever and perhaps one day in the years ahead we will be down amongst the dead men of world tennis again, struggling to beat Andorra in the tennis equivalent of the Bristol Downs Football league.
We, as a nation, should knight him and quick, tell him what he means to our country and thank him for always turning up for David Cup games, for always giving of his best, for being a great role-model for every young sportsman and woman in the land.
By hard work, desire, ambition, hunger, belief and sheer ability, Murray shows anything is possible. Arise Sir Andrew Murray, along with Sir Mo Farah, Sir David Beckham, Sir Jason Kenny, Dame Laura Trott, Dame Ellie Simmonds and Dame Nicola Adams. (Apologies to anyone I have left out.)
Remember, always remember, the little people too because our country would simply not work without them, or be worth living in, but never forget the winners.
