Sorry Clare, how did you forget Zara?
CLARE CONNOR, ECB head of women’s cricket, has taken great exception to Geoff Boycott’s commentary during this Ashes series. ‘God, the arrogant, all-knowing opinions of Boycott are bordering on unbearable this morning,’ she tweeted during the Test in Adelaide. And Boycott does have a Marmite element, true. At least, however, his views are based on personal experience, and fact. On the night of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, Connor tweeted: ‘As a little girl, I grew up watching SPOTY with my Mum and Dad. ‘They never had an answer for me when I asked why no women were nominated. Thankfully, parents don’t have to fudge an answer to that question now. Well done.’ Actually, they didn’t have to fudge it then. If Mr and Mrs Connor were across their subject, they could have told little Clare that there have always been female winners of SPOTY, including three in consecutive years between 1962 and 1964, Anita Lonsbrough, Dorothy Hyman and Mary Rand. Ann Jones won in 1969, Princess Anne in 1971, Mary Peters in 1972, Virginia Wade in 1977, the year after Connor was born. Indeed, one might also question those childhood memories, considering Jayne Torvill won it — with her partner Christopher Dean — when Clare was eight, Fatima Whitbread when she was 11 and Liz McColgan when she was 15. Sally Gunnell was in the top three in three of Connor’s teenage years, too. And here’s the irony. The last female winner of the main prize was Zara Phillips in 2006, making this the longest period of male dominance in the award’s history, 11 years. Clare has got far more fudging to do than her parents ever had.