Short-list sees Samuel in line for hat-trick

Martin Samuel, the SJA’s Sports Writer of the Year in 2005 and 2006, is in the frame to become the first journalist to win the Sports Journalists’ Association’s prestigious award three years running.

Samuel, the football correspondent of The Times (pictured above, left, receiving his prize a year ago from SJA President Sir Michael Parkinson, centre, alongside Getty Image’s Stu Forster, the 2006 SJA Sports Photographer of the Year), has been short-listed for the award along with two other past winners, James Lawton of The Independent and the Daily Mail‘s Paul Hayward.

Making up the six on the shortlist are The Times columnist Simon Barnes, The Guardian‘s David Conn and Daily Mirror columnist Oliver Holt.

The short-list was voted for by the sports editors of all Britain’s national newspapers.

The presentation of the SJA’s British Sports Journalism Awards, supported by UK Sport and BT Vision, and including the British Sports Photography Awards, the Sports Broadcaster of the Year and Sports Cartoonist of the Year, take place on Monday March 17 at The Brewery in London.

SJA Sports Writer of the Year 2007 Short-list
Simon Barnes (The Times)
David Conn (The Guardian)
James Lawton (The Independent)
Oliver Holt (Daily Mirror)
Paul Hayward (Daily Mail)
Martin Samuel (The Times)