OK, I’ll admit it. This article was supposed to be predicated on Lewis Hamilton missing out on the latest BBC Sports Personality of the Year award – which in case you are uninitiated is an annual award from the broadcaster based on a UK public vote of the best (almost always UK) sports person of the calendar year, that takes place just before Christmas.
Time was that being British and winning or nearly winning the F1 world championship was enough seemingly to get you over the line, evidenced by Nigel Mansell claiming the prize in his near-miss, tyre-exploding 1986 as well as in his title year of 1992, and by Damon Hill seizing it in 1994 and 1996.
More recently however it’s not been quite as straightforward for our F1 folks and particularly not for Lewis. In 2007 after his stunning debut season he missed out on the honour to boxer Joe Calzaghe. In 2008 when he took his first title he lost out on the award to cyclist Chris Hoy. Jenson Button too the following year in his own title year was pipped by Ryan Giggs, though may have been a victim of peculiar Man Utd fans’/Welsh block voting, that time awarding the veteran footballer a pseudo lifetime achievement accolade.
But fast forward to the present and as you’ll probably know this time Lewis did win it, and won it handsomely ahead of the apparent favourite in golfer Rory McIlroy.
Yet it remains undeniable that Lewis is one that has, and still to an extent does, divide opinion. Including in his native country. Probably especially in his native country. There are plenty of his compatriots who adore him (see any British Grand Prix crowd) but there are too a conspicuous bunch who hold him consciously at an arm’s length. And even his overdue BBC honour provided evidence of such.
There have been surprise, even plain odd, winners of the Sports Personality award before. For the last few years wherein it has all been based on a live on-the-night vote they’ve come with particular regularity. But this time in a way that I do not recall before there was following Lewis’s success a howl of protest – across the media both established and social. Some of it predictable (‘F1 isn’t a real sport’, ‘it’s all the car’ etc). Some of it personal (‘he sulks’, ‘he lives in Monaco’, ‘he’s a tax dodger’ etc – odd given that among many other examples McIlroy’s Florida residence isn’t entirely based on the ocean view). It was in my view particularly strange given that while of course a compelling case can be made for McIlroy’s highly decorated 2014 year, Lewis claiming the award instead was hardly from leftfield. The Mirror’s Oliver Holt for one twigged what was going on and asked ‘SPOTY winner Lewis Hamilton should be a national treasure, so why isn’t the F1 champ more loved?’
But even before all of this we had evidence that Lewis’s Marmite-like tendencies were being sensed. In the days prior to the clinching of his latest F1 championship the Telegraph’s F1 correspondent Daniel Johnson headlined an article on Lewis asking ‘why does Britain not love him?’ Then a few days later after his title was confirmed the Eurosport website posed the loaded question of ‘Hamilton (is) a worthy world champion but is he a likeable one?’
Many have their theories as to why it is that Lewis maintains a motley band of persistent detractors in Britain. To return to a point mentioned – and one we were snowed under with following Lewis’s award – that he resides in a tax haven, while I’m not going to defend Lewis’s tax arrangements it also is the case that he is hardly alone on that one. Even reducing the scope just to F1 drivers and naming a Briton of that ilk who hasn’t shifted residence in the name of extreme tax efficiency is a trying task. Those who have reads like a who’s who: Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill, Jenson Button… Even relatively modest talents such as Paul di Resta and Johnny Herbert did. And I recall very little scrutiny of them. It seems undeniable that the condemnation going around for this disproportionately concentrates on Lewis. So not much help there. It appears part of the effect of Lewis’s dividing of views rather than part of the cause.
One article in the Guardian too claimed that Lewis’s ethnicity is a factor. While I by no means dismiss the notion out of hand I also will for the purposes of this article cravenly side-step it, given I likely would not do justice to an exploration of the intricacies of Britain’s race relations.
Looking through the other common inclusions in the case for the prosecution of Lewis we however, albeit inadvertently, get closer to what I believe is a major part of the answer. The afore-mentioned Eurosport article took up the reins:
‘Too often this season and many before, he (Hamilton) has been happy to take the plaudits when things are going his way but also to offer curt replies to interviews, openly criticise his team over the radio and sulk when things aren’t working to his liking.
‘Then there’s the celebrity red carpet lifestyle, the pop star girlfriend and bling earrings that seem to suggest he’s not always totally focussed on the job he should be doing. The same kind of behaviour that has seen footballers labelled as “overpaid prima donnas”.’
The author then goes on to place all of this in sharp contrast to the ‘humble’, ‘magnanimous in defeat’, ‘unflappable’ and ‘down to earth’ Nico Rosberg, who ‘seems to absolutely love everything about the sport, whether or not he’s winning or just taking part.’
And here we may have our answer. The English public it seems has a type in its sportspeople. The gritty, humble trier. The honest yeoman. Industrious, determined and brave in extremes. But also stoic, modest, courteous. Almost that embodies the virtuous Corinthian spirit of yore. The gentleman amateur rather than the grubby professional. Self-aggrandising, petulance and reliance on a talent without appropriate application are strict no-nos.
As a side note I use English rather than British deliberately here. England in population terms makes up the vast majority of Britain of course, and as well as this as a Scot I’ve noticed that the Scottish priorities seem slightly different. There the wayward genius antihero sort often is placed on a pedestal, as evidenced by the reverence that the likes of the self-destructive Jim Baxter are held in. Welsh priorities sadly are beyond my current ken.
And as for Lewis we all are aware of his towering, almost freakish, talent – it is of the highly visible sort. The independent and often unorthodox sort too. You suspect that Lewis is aware of it also. Of all of the top line F1 drivers of now Lewis, with the possible recent exception of Daniel Ricciardo, you feel would be the most willing to face another top liner head-to-head with the same equipment. On the days that rain falls Lewis usually is the first to sense an opportunity and suggest that conditions are sufficient for all to be getting on with. All this is comment not criticism; it’s not something I begrudge Lewis at all, personally.
But as has been argued in this column previously perhaps a flip side of this is that many have assumed (unfairly) that talent is all that he offers. His application does not get its fullest acknowledgment.
Lewis too has on occasion perhaps contributed to the manufacture of the rod for his own back on this, displaying often bewildering and errant behaviour on and off the track, especially in and around the 2011 season. The ‘showbiz lifestyle’ we’ve mentioned. His emotional range and perceptions about his attitude to his collective we’ve mentioned too. Exactly the kind of stuff that many of his compatriots look rather unfavourably upon.
And here we get to a potential rub. That in England there is a common association of talent and show with what are firmly considered negative characteristics. Selfishness. Capriciousness. Not nearly making the best of what you have.
There is a resultant mistrust of talent. Far better to back those stoic, submissive and reliable even if they are more limited in their abilities. And it seems possible at least that Lewis’s instinctive and maverick skills and his capacity for showmanship are associated by extension automatically with the negatives outlined (again unfairly in large part, especially lately). Indeed, note the Eurosport quote above which conflates his ostentation with wastefulness and underachievement, almost as if it is inevitable that it begets the others. Note too how it is equally seamlessly held in unfavourable contrast with the more modest and homespun characteristics of his team mate.
Note too that both of the two F1 double-winners of the Sports Personality of the Year award mentioned – Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill – rather embody the everyman gritty trier. Mansell was never humble but more than made up for it you feel by the fact that no other racing driver likely has ever so conspicuously sought to succeed via sheer, extraordinary will overcoming whatever number of obstacles lay before him.
Lewis meanwhile has his characteristics that, while they are not necessarily wrong (indeed many of them are emphatically right), chafe against the sensibilities of many of his fellow Englanders. Perhaps whatever he did he was on a hiding to nothing with some.
We can perhaps forgive this view to an extent, as there have been a few conspicuous English examples over time where inspiration and implosion have indeed gone together. Paul Gascoigne in football had a magnificent talent. So did Ian Botham in cricket. Both were trouble of the highest order. England’s sports fans also got a front row seat to Northern Irish footballer George Best’s notorious crash and burn.
But equally is it not unfair to assume that it must always be so? Indeed, in discussing a similar recent case of cricketer Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Anthony in the Observer said ‘It should be obvious by now that in this country “he’s a great talent but he’s trouble” really means “he’s great therefore he’s trouble”. The gifted in Britain are guilty until proven innocent. Somewhere in our national psyche we identify special talent as a marker for a weak or unbalanced character.’
Anthony wondered further if the association between skills and strife might even be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as ‘our system produces “troubled talents” because, by and large, they are the only ones who survive its verve-crushing emphasis on dogged functionalism.’
Ben Dirs for the BBC in large part concurred on the same subject: ‘The real wonder of Kevin Pietersen’s England career is not that he has endured for so long but that he was picked in the first place. Such is the deep-seated suspicion of the “maverick” in English sport.
‘It is often enough simply to possess an outlandish talent to be considered suspect. English sport is set up for honest yeoman, while outlandish talent is often treated like witchcraft.’
The parallels between Pietersen’s popular image and that of Hamilton are many. Both possess prodigious talents, allied to a considerable élan and streak of the unorthodox and individual. Both also accumulated considerable achievements. But despite this both endured persistent chanting choirs of doubters – that they were untrustworthy, unpredictable, had a questionable character wherein among other things they put their own egos before their teams. That they lacked the discipline to really make the best of their skills. If they provided fireworks they also too often burnt their own fingers. And in Pietersen’s case the conundrum reached its resolution after England’s slow motion train wreck of its recent 5-0 reverse against Australia in the prestigious Ashes series, and despite statistics still having him the best of England’s bad bunch of batsmen on the ill-starred tour he was rather scapegoated as part of England’s response and placed in permanent exile.
The phenomenon appears to apply to other sports in England too. In rugby Danny Cipriani had flair to spare but was quickly discarded by the national side as being more trouble than he was worth. A generation or so before Stuart Barnes provided the inspiration but it was the much more safety-first Rob Andrew that in his stead won the vast total of international caps and national hero status (Dirs described Barnes as ‘a suspicious free thinker in the dogmatic world of English rugby’).
While in football since Alf Ramsay’s efficient but not necessarily exciting World Cup-winning side of 1966 apparently set the template the accumulated list of geniuses that were almost never trusted to represent the country with any sort of permanency is as long as your arm. Matt Le Tissier, Stan Bowles and Peter Osgood were just a few of a wide cast hardly touched by the national side; a variety of brave, industrious, docile sorts were persistently preferred.
Then there is the quintessential case of Glenn Hoddle, who while he accumulated 53 England appearances in his career almost never therein was he utilised to his considerable full effect. He was forever in and out of the side; when he was in usually was played away from his favoured position. It took a move to France later in his career for him to be suitably appreciated. His manager then, no less a figure than Arsene Wenger, described him as ‘the most skilful player I ever worked with’. The legendary Michel Platini reckoned that had Hoddle been French he’d have represented his country 150 times.
Perhaps it goes yet deeper. In Chariots of Fire Harold Abrahams’ Cambridge college master affirmed that sport is meant to be about the ‘unassailable spirit of loyalty, comradeship and mutual responsibility’. No doubt an expression of the country’s sporting amateur values of the Victorian age. Not much room in it for individual flair it seems.
It may go deeper still. Anyone who has witnessed the British Remembrance Sunday commemorations and similar will be aware of the particular affection that is held therein for the ‘Unknown Warrior’ sort – brave, unquestioning, but also with something of an anonymity. No sense of expecting thanks or plaudits. Certainly no individualism or ego. As Alfred Tennyson said with some admiration in The Charge of the Light Brigade: ‘Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die’. And as if to bring the point full circle George Orwell once noted famously that ‘sport is war minus the shooting’.
Stirling Moss may have been reflecting a little more than he realised when he said of Hamilton recently: ‘He was one of the racing crowd before and now he’s whatever you call those superstars. And that’s not really the way we English go. We’re more reserved.’
All of course are entitled to their character judgements, even to their predispositions to an extent, and none of us are under an obligation to like and admire everyone. Furthermore it’s almost impossible to measure quantitatively why someone doesn’t like someone else and if all else fails spurious reasons can be given. So we rely on conjecture. And as a result we’ll likely never get a firm answer on quite why the latest F1 world champion is apparently without honour in some at least of his own country. But it seems possible at least that such is Lewis Hamilton’s gift that in gaining the affections of a few in his native land he always was going to be fighting a losing battle.