Ryan Giggs - BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2009

It seems that every week that passes brings with it some kind of achievement for Ryan Giggs and whilst he continues to achieve some kind of milestone with every game he plays for Manchester United, awards off the field have took a long overdue turn for the better.

Tonight, Ryan Giggs was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2009.

This, together with the PFA Players’ Player of the Year which he won earlier this year means that people have finally woken up to the sporting legend that is Ryan Giggs.

Any top sports-person can have a good spell, any of them can have a good year, maybe a good tournament that propels them to the forefront of the sporting public’s attention.

Ryan Giggs has been playing at the very highest level for twenty years.

When he first burst onto the scene all those years ago, he was the talk of football but perhaps with David Beckham arriving shortly afterwards, a lot of the attention was taken away from Giggsy and in the meantime we have players such as Cantona and Ronaldo who have grabbed the headlines.

Ryan has quietly gone about his business on the field and, despite being such a big player at a big club, has been able to seemingly disappear as soon as the final whistle blows.

He doesn’t get involved with nonsense, he doesn’t do anything to bring his own name or that of Manchester United into any kind of disrepute. He describes his personal life as “quite boring”.

As a role model for any young person wishing to embark on a life of sporting achievement, he is, however, perfect.

As I said earlier, anyone can have their day in the sunshine, perhaps a year where everything they do turns to gold but to maintain the hunger and the desire to do it again and again and again, despite having won everything there is to win, despite having broken all kinds of records and despite having all the money you will ever need in the bank requires something extra-special.

Whatever that thing is, Ryan Giggs possesses it in abundance and Manchester United supporters should be extremely proud to call this giant of a sporting gentleman one of their own.