The BBC Sports Unsung Hero Award is an award given annually as part of the

BBC Sports Personality of the Year The BBC Sports Personality of the Year is an awards ceremony that takes place annually in December. Devised by Paul Fox in 1954, it originally consisted of just a single award of the same name. Several new awards have been introduced, and cu ...

ceremony each December. The award is given to the sportsperson who has made a substantive yet unrecognised contribution to sport.

History

The inaugural winner in 2003 was 63-year-old Nobby Woodcock, for "his unstinting work with grassroots football in Wales". Of the fourteen recipients to date, four were chosen for their contributions to

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

; the other recipients contributed towards

boxing Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two people – usually wearing protective equipment, such as boxing glove, protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards – throwing Punch (combat), punch ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competitio ...

, swimming, sailing and the

Special Olympics Special Olympics is the world's largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, providing year-round training and activities to 5 million participants and Unified Sports partners in 172 countries. Special Ol ...

. As of 2024, six of the twenty two winners have each been put forward from the

BBC East Midlands BBC East Midlands is the BBC English Region covering Derbyshire (except High Peak, Chesterfield, North East Derbyshire and the northern areas of the Derbyshire Dales), Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire (except Bassetlaw), Rutland, South Kest ...

region, four from the

BBC South BBC South is the BBC English Region serving Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Dorset, West Sussex, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and parts of Gloucestershire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Surrey, and Wiltshire, with geographic coverage varying between ...

region and two from the

BBC East BBC East is one of BBC's English Regions covering Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and parts of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire (including the City of Milton Keynes). It is headquartered in The Forum ...

and

BBC Scotland BBC Scotland is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Scotland. Its headquarters are in Glasgow, employing approximately 1,250 staff as of 2017, to produce 15,000 hours of television and radio programming per year. BBC Scotla ...

regions. The other winners came from the

BBC London BBC London is the BBC English Region producing local radio, television, teletext and online services in London, Surrey and parts of the surrounding areas of the Home Counties. Its output includes the daily '' BBC London'' news bulletin and w ...

BBC North West BBC North West is the BBC English Regions, BBC English Region serving Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, as well as parts of North Yorkshire (western Craven District, Craven), Derbyshire (western High Peak, Derbyshire, High ...

BBC Northern Ireland BBC Northern Ireland is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcasting, public broadcaster in Northern Ireland. It is widely available across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. BBC Northern Ireland is one of the four BB ...

BBC West BBC West is one of the BBC's English Regions serving Bristol, Somerset, the majority of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire and north of Dorset. Services Television BBC West's television service (broadcast on BBC One) consists of the flagship regio ...

BBC West Midlands BBC Midlands is the BBC English Regions, BBC English Region producing local radio and World Wide Web, web content for the City of Birmingham, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcest ...

and

BBC Wales BBC Cymru Wales is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcasting, public broadcaster in Wales. It is one of the four BBC national regions, alongside the BBC English Regions, BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Scotland. Established in 1964, ...

regions. The most recent award was presented in 2024 to Jean Paton.

Nomination procedure

Sportspeople are nominated by the public, and must be aged 16 years or over on 1 January that year. Nominees may not put themselves forward or be nominated by a member of their

immediate family The immediate family is a defined group of relations, used in rules or laws to determine which members of a person's family are affected by those rules. It normally includes a person's parents, siblings, spouse, and children. It can contain other ...

. A nominee must actively help others participate in a sport at any level on a voluntary basis. The work they do must not be part of their job or take part within their places of work, and they must not be a participant in the sporting group they are helping. Previous winners of the award are ineligible for nomination. One winner is selected from each of the twelve

BBC English Regions BBC English Regions is the division of the BBC responsible for local and regional television, radio, World Wide Web, web, and teletext services in England, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. It is one of the BBC's four "nations" – the ...

, and the three national regions:

, and

. A judging panel then chooses the Unsung Hero winner from the fifteen regional winners.

Winners

By year

By region

This table lists the total number of awards won by the BBC Region through which the recipient qualified for the award.

By sport

This table lists the total number of awards won by the sport the recipient contributed towards.

References

General * Specific {{SPOTY Unsung Hero Awards established in 2003 2003 establishments in the United Kingdom