Now is not the time for wry cynicism as SPOTY 2020 and Lewis Hamilton’s win reminds us what really matters

Captain Tom Moore's voice swept over the kind of intro the BBC do better than most, before handing over to everyman PE teacher Joe Wicks to introduce our hosts for the evening. The set, for the most part, was a Zoom mosaic of dignitaries, NHS staff and charity workers. Everyone single one of them on mute.

Those in view, certainly those on-screen, did their best to display some semblance of togetherness beyond their rapport, sociallydistancedofcourse. The mood was one of reflection and celebration, bookended by sombre notes in keeping with BBC impartiality. 2020 has been challenging, but other years of downtrodden misery are available, of course.

It's no fault of the BBC that Sports Personality of the Year felt like a Covid Variety Performance. An awards ceremony that wears criticism of being neither about sport or personality like a corsage was always going to struggle when both have been deflated. It says a lot that even the cynicism, however half-hearted, had a comfort to it, of a "normal" just like the old.

In that regard, it was fitting the primary winner is more durable than most. Lewis Hamilton has never needed the validation of those who know little of his work – or most of those who do – so the discontent of the fastest car or BBC wokeism are flies on a windscreen to a 35-year old black man with seven world championships in the bag fuelled by a renewed fight for racial injustices.

READ MORE: Lewis Hamilton crowned 2020 Sports Personality of the Year

"I think it's been a long journey together," Hamilton said of the British public's affection through votes. That it was his second triumph - and sixth time in the top three - shows talk about his unpopularity at home is slightly overblown. But it is easy to find his detractors, especially so for him when they come straight to his phone.

The rest of us, though, are not so tough. And with lives put on hold as sport continues to continue, the idea of it doing so for our betterment has been harder to acknowledge as a great public service. Indeed, to have something to shout about on Sunday evening was to have plenty before the world fell to its knees.

Formula One, football, horse racing, cricket, boxing and snooker had the capacity to continue on, through finance, convenience and important friends, with the first soliciting as much of the latter two as reasonably (legally) as possible. That said, the significance of jockey Hollie Doyle's presence in the final six as the only woman grew when she claimed third-place given how disproportionately women's sport has been affected over the last nine months.

But as the show went on at Salford's Media City, SPOTY came into its own. Because for all its recent history as a gala that has championed sports it had little access to, providing GCSE bitesize summaries of great feats we all saw elsewhere, their real strength emerged. For as much as this night was a celebration of our athletes, the real focus was on achievements beyond fields, arenas and gyms.

Of honouring Sgt Matt Ratana for his work as head coach of East Grinstead Rugby Club after he was killed on duty as a Met police officer on 25 September. Of the fund-raising efforts of Tobias Weller, who suffers from cerebral palsy and autism, who sought inspiration from Captain Tom Moore to raise £150,000 by walking the equivalent of two marathons.

Of Marcus Rashford's work for raising awareness of the state of child food poverty in the country, and doing something about it. And Kevin Sinfield's week of marathons to raise over £2m for Motor Neurone Disease on behalf of his former Leeds Rhinos teammate Rob Burrow. Binding both sport and life was a spoken word performance from poet Deanna Rodge on the fight against racial and social injustice this year. A poignant moment to assess how much of this charade of glorified play actually matters, if we hadn't already.

Even the hosts, Gabby Logan, Gary Lineker, Clare Balding and Alex Scott, with a minimal studio audience of behind-the-camera operators to work with, nailed a tough brief. Serious but sweet, reverential with enough shades of realism. Their real flourish came with the acknowledgement of Tyson Fury's disregard for the awards, as Logan relayed his stance of not wanting anyone to vote for him. Lineker interjected: "You can ignore him, of course. It is *your* vote."

If that all sounds a bit twee then, well, it's because it was. All that was missing was a joining of hands - sociallydistancedofcourse - and a Beeb-wide singsong of Heal The World to a slow-motion montage of Hamilton spraying champagne, Jordan Henderson spreading a ball out wide to another superstar or Stuart Broad celebrappealing in an empty Ageas Bowl.

Sport does move people, but not all sport moves all people. The same goes for SPOTY. It doesn't do it for some, but it does for others, and such an event was always going to matter even more to them than it would to us sideway glancers. When people are scrabbling around for anything that brings them joy, any sliver that makes them feel something real, but not as real as the existential pandemic dread we've been living in, let them.

With the end of a year we all want to forget in sight, now is not the time for spraying around wry cynicism on an awards ceremony that doesn't really matter in Proper Sport's super serious world. Hopefully, by 2021's Sports Personality of the Year, it will be.