Lions and Gatland Honoured at BBC Sports Personality Awards

The British and Irish Lions were named the team of the year and Warren Gatland won the coach of the year award at the 2013 BBC Sports Personality awards held in Leeds last night.

The representative team were hailed for their historic first Test Series win in 16 years.

After winning the first test of the series 23-21 in Brisbane, the Lions lost the second match of the series 16-15 in Melbourne, in the dramatic of circumstances, as a last-minute Lions penalty did not have the legs to go all the way.

However, Gatland galvanised the team for the last test of the series, guiding his side to a record-breaking 41-16 destruction of Australia in Sydney, all after making the brave – and to many controversial – decision to drop legendary Irish centre Brian O’Driscoll.

The New Zealand-born Wales coach beat two-time winner and Chief of British Cycling David Brailsford, along with England cricket coach Andy Flower and Andy Murray’s influential coach, multi grand-slam winner Ivan Lendl; whilst the team itself beat Great Britain's successful Solheim Cup-winning golf team and the all-conquering Team Sky cycling team.

Lions captain Sam Warburton said: "It's not just the 15 guys who take the field in the first or second or third Test, we have a backroom staff of 35 or 40 people, and there are 70 or 80 of us all working towards the same goal, so it's fantastic we could achieve it."

In the main award of the evening Welsh Lion Leigh Halfpenny was second behind Scotland's Andy Murray in taking the coveted award.

The Wales and Lions full-back was crowned the player of the series down-under, helping his side to a history-making triumph over Australia, with 2010 winner Tony McCoy in third place.

Andy Murray was duly crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year, capping an historic year which saw him become the first British man in 76 years to win the Wimbledon singles title.

Murray is the fourth tennis player to win the award and the first since Greg Rusedski pipped Tim Henman to victory in 1997. Virginia Wade and Ann Jones were also crowned in 1977 and 1969 respectively.

The 26-year-old Scot was not able to receive his award in person due to pre-season training commitments in Florida, and instead received it live on air from 18-times grand slam singles champion Martina Navratilova.

Murray joked: "I know I'm sometimes not the easiest person to support but I've had a lot of pressure on me for a long time and I'm just glad I finally managed to break through.

"No matter how excited I try to sound my voice still sounds incredibly boring but I'm actually incredibly excited right now. That's just my voice - I'm sorry.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be there tonight but I couldn't have got in the position I'm in if I didn't take my training and preparation extremely hard - I've been doing it for the last five or six years and I've dedicated probably the last 10 years of my life to this."

Other awards on the evening saw Sebastian Vettel succeed Usain Bolt as the Overseas Sports Personality of the Year after a history-making season which saw him claim his fourth consecutive Formula One world title.

Also, skeet shooter Amber Hill was crowned Young Sports Personality of the Year after a year which saw her crowned the youngest World Cup winner in her sport's history.

To mark the programme's 60th year, Sir Bobby Charlton presented a special Diamond Achievement award to Sir Alex Ferguson, who called time on his 26 years in charge of Manchester United this summer.

Ferguson paid tribute to Charlton, saying: "Sir Bobby is one of the reasons that I existed as long as I did in the early days at Manchester United because he believed in the direction we were taking in terms of producing the young players again.

"I've had a great life, a great career and I'm still busy, I've not gone away, but I picked the right time - 27 years in this industry is very, very difficult and I'm enjoying my retirement."

Former Liverpool captain Alan Hansen presented the Helen Rollason Award posthumously to the late Anne Williams, for her tireless campaigning for a new inquest for her son Kevin and other victims of the Hillsborough disaster.

Finally, the Unsung Hero award was presented to Joe and Maggie Forber for their work with young basketball players at the Amaechi Basketball Centre in Manchester.

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