Alison Kervin, the first woman to be sports editor of a national newspaper in England, has been made an OBE in the New Year’s honours list for her services to sports journalism.
The sports editor of the Mail on Sunday since 2013, Kervin’s newspaper’s website reported that the honour was made “in recognition of her wide-ranging career which has also included being chief sports feature writer for The Times and subsequently chief sports interviewer for The Daily Telegraph”.
Also in the honours is Jonathan Agnew, the BBC’s cricket correspondent, who receives an MBE, while among a slew of post-Rio Olympic and Paralympic sporting recipients is a long-time colleague of the SJA, Tim Hollingsworth, the chief executive of the British Paralympic Association, who receives the OBE. Joanna Manning-Cooper, the communications chief at the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England, receives the MBE.
Kervin, 47, started her career at the Hastings Observer and her work has included writing extensively on rugby.
Recently, she has led the Mail on Sunday‘s campaign aimed at raising awareness of the dangers from concussion in sport.
Kervin said: “I’m very flattered. It’s amazing and humbling — the greatest honour.
‘I’m very flattered. It’s amazing and humbling — the greatest honour’
“Although the award’s presented to me, it’s very much a tribute to a wonderful team at Sportsmail and everything we’ve done.
“We’ve tried hard to do things a little differently — to be more investigative and to throw our weight behind big campaigns that fight to change sport and make it safer.”
Andy Elliott, the SJA’s chairman, said today, “Of course, we congratulate all the figures from sport who feature in the New Year’s honours, as well as our colleagues such as Alison Kervin, Jonathan Agnew, Tim Hollingsworth and Joanna Manning-Cooper. For Alison, this is a marvellous achievement which recognises the ground-breaking concussion campaign.”