McCoy was our long-term tip at 2/1 to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year trophy and National Hunt’s finest duly obliged after topping the polls ahead of Jessica Ennis and Phil “The Power” Taylor.

McCoy and Taylor certainly looked like two opposite ends of the sporting spectrum as they accepted their awards.

AP is a man who has lived on a bizarre diet of two jelly babies for lunch for years to keep his weight down. Taylor obviously doesn’t have a racing weight.

But both men have dominated their sports for more than a decade and the recognition was long overdue.

Ennis’s day will come very soon and she seems a shoe-in for the 2012 prize as the expected pin-up girl of the London Olympics.

The awards showed you how far English football has slipped with none of our “world-class” players even in the running for the prize.

And things are starting to wobble down under after our cricketers got a bit carried away with their own hype.

Suddenly the Ashes is wide-open again and the Aussies are back in love with cricket.

The next test in Melbourne looks like a sell-out with 90,0000 packed into the MCG on Boxing Day.

Apparently tickets where moving slower than BA at Heathrow before the Aussies won the last test. Funny that.

The match looks too close to call so I’ll watch through a fog of Christmas booze clutching my original 15/8 voucher with crossed fingers for us to win the series.

Christmas and the New Year offers-up a blizzard of football fixtures as the players complain about having to work three times in seven days in between stumbling around the West End in dodgy fancy dress.

It’s always a tricky time of year for punters but I like the look of Man City at a general 5/4 to beat Newcastle in their own back yard.

Mancini’s men will be smarting from the Everton defeat and Alan Pardew’s fairytale start could come crashing down around his ears very quickly.

Have a good one and here’s to staying lucky throughout 2011.

Running Total for all bets to a £10 stake:   +£139.50