IF THE GREAT KENNYS ARE KNIGHTED, SURELY GREAVSIE DESERVES ONE TOO
AS the most successful male and female athletes in British Olympic history, there’s no doubting that Team GB golden couple Laura and Jason Kenny are wonderful competitors.
Twelve gold medals and three silvers between them from three summer Games attest to that.
But the clamour to see Laura made a dame and Jason knighted upon their return from Tokyo last week was well over the top.
And, given they come across as thoroughly decent and down-to-earth individuals, you can’t help but think they probably feel the same.
This isn’t to denigrate their achievements because every Olympian deserves our respect. Even the shot-putters.
And even more so those who medal time and again at multiple Games. If there were an Olympic Hall of Fame on these isles – and there should be – the Kennys (below) would deserve pride of place in it.
But in a day and age when many Olympians are professional athletes, do we really need to hand out the highest of gongs as a further pat on the back to those who have already been rewarded?
It’s not as if many of them bring joy to the masses year in, year out, let alone week in, week out as our footballers do.
Most compete in sports no one gives a toss about until the Games come round and then it’s not as if the public lose sleep if the hoped-for success doesn’t follow.
Of course, the most extraordinary feats, such as Sir Steve Redgrave winning rowing golds at five successive Olympics, are worthy of the highest recognition.
But when a great like Jimmy Greaves can’t get a knighthood after 60-odd years of
entertaining on the football field and off it, surely doing well – even very, very well – in track-cycling over a nineyear period shouldn’t warrant a damehood or knighthood.
Half a century after he last kicked a football, Jimmy (below) is still known to many as England’s greatest goalscorer.
And in the years that followed his retirement, he brought great joy as a muchloved TV personality and lovingly read newspaper columnist.
Of course, he wasn’t pro-establishment in his heyday and he had a very public battle with alcohol.
But his honesty back then helped so many conquer their demons and, in plenty of cases, kept them alive. All that and the best they could do for him – at the age of 80 – was hand him an MBE.
Then there’s Sir Kenny Dalglish, who won four league titles as a player with Celtic and six with Liverpool, was voted the second best player of the biggest sport in the world in 1983 and went on to win three titles as manager of Liverpool and one with Blackburn.
He gave incredible strength and support to the city of Liverpool after Hillsborough and worked tirelessly for charity throughout his life, but was 67 before he got the old sword-tap on both shoulders.
It all makes you wonder if footballers have to work far harder and for far longer than Olympians to win over the honours committee.
And if that is the case, it really is a nonsense.