I’m not sure whether to bother with the BBC’s sports personality of the year awards on Sunday night.

It’s always been a bit chummy and smug. But sometimes the back-slapping gets too much.

And are there are candidates genuinely worthy of the crown?

David Haye? Maybe. But Nikolai Valuev, giant of a man that he is, was hardly world champion material.

Haye’s certainly got the personality but he will have a much bigger shout when he has toppled one of the Klitschko brothers.

Jenson Button would walk the award for best car. Not so sure about the driver, though.

And if Lewis Hamilton did not win it last year, Button surely cannot succeed.

So what about Andy Murray? What about Andy Murray … The personality criteria knocks him out of the reckoning.

Ryan Giggs will get the Man United vote, Tom Daly the granny’s support for cuteness.

But for me there are only two real contenders – and one winner.

Sheffield’s Jessica Ennis came of age when she won the world heptathlon title.

And she has the advantage that the Beeb will be free to show all of her clips.

But my choice would be someone who has shown great leadership quality to turn a team of also-rans into one capable of winning the biggest prize in his sport.

Twice ignored for the England captaincy, his reign began in humiliation in the West Indies.

Six months after being skittled for a pathetic 51 in Jamaica, Andrew Strauss was lifting the famous little urn having regained the Ashes.

There were no histrionics a la Flintoff or Pietersen.

Just a gritty, dogged realism that the beaten Aussies would have grudgingly admired.

I still doubt his chances on Sunday night. The lengthy odds in the bookies back that up.

But that probably says a lot more about the sporting public than the man himself.

That’s why I’ll probably not bother with it.