Full lists of all previous recipients of these trophies can be found on our ‘Past Winners’ pages for the SJA British Sports Journalism Awards and SJA British Sports Awards.
SJA British Sports Journalism Awards
John Bromley
Since John Bromley’s death in 2002, his name has adorned the trophy for the Sports Journalists’ Association’s Sports Writer of the Year.
Bromley began his career as a print journalist with the Romford Times and Dagenham Herald before Fleet Street with the Daily Herald and Daily Mirror.
He joined ABC Television in 1964 where he helped launch World of Sport and was instrumental in introducing Wrestling, which became synonymous with the programme.
In 1968, Bromley joined the new London Weekend Television franchise. He led ITV’s production team for the 1970 Mexico World Cup, establishing a new informal style for the panel of experts.
He became LWT controller in 1972 and was in charge when ITV’s “Snatch of the Day” saw the channel take over the coveted Saturday night football slot in 1980.
He became chairman of the ITV Network Sports Committee in 1981 and was instrumental in teaming up Ian St John and Jimmy Greaves as “Saint and Greavsie.”
After his retirement from ITV, he became a consultant for Sky and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph and was made an OBE in 1991.
A committee member of the Association from 1962 to 68, he served as Chairman in 1965/6 and was the first man to be named President in 1990.
He received the Doug Gardner Award in 1999.
He also had two spells as Chairman of the Lord’s Taverners charity.
Doug Gardner
The Doug Gardner Award recognises services to the SJA, and to the wider sports media industry.
Gardner reported on his first Olympics in 1948. He had begun his career on the Willesden Chronicle where he rose to become sports editor.
He later joined the Sporting Record. Then from 1954, he began writing for World Sports magazine.
He took on the mantle of football specialist from Willy Meisl and later became deputy editor of its successor Sportsworld, and produced the British Olympic Association report of the Munich Olympics.
He had earlier edited the BOA’s official report for the 1964 Tokyo Games.
He joined the Association in 1951 and was first elected to the committee in 1962.
He served an initial term of nine years and was elected chairman in 1968.
He returned to the committee in 1973 and was secretary for three years from 1974. He remained on the committee until his death in 1990.
Ian Wooldridge
The Ian Wooldridge Trophy is awarded to the SJA Young Sportswriter of the Year, and was inaugurated at the 2007 edition of the SJA British Sports Journalism Awards.
Wooldridge cut his teeth with the New Milton Advertiser in his native Hampshire, a paper he described as “Dickensian”.
His first break in Fleet Street came at the News Chronicle and in 1961, he joined the Daily Mail, beginning an association which lasted the rest of his life.
He became the paper’s cricket writer and from the early Seventies, a much-respected columnist.
Inspired by Paul Gallico and Ernest Hemingway, Wooldridge cultivated a sense of adventure. He flew with the Red Arrows, ran with bulls in Pamplona, raced across the North American wilderness with huskies and hurtled down the Cresta run.
He was almost expelled from the 1980 Moscow Olympics after Soviet authorities took exception to his article on the opening ceremony.
His television documentaries on Sir Alf Ramsey and Brian Clough as part of the acclaimed Sports Arena series in the late 1960s. Later, he made incisive films about the America’s Cup and the dominance of West Indies cricket.
He also carried the Olympic torch in 1996.
The first recipient of the Association’s Sportswriter of the Year Award in 1976, he also won in 1978, 1986, 1987 and 1995 to join Hugh McIlvanney as a winner in three decades.
He received the Doug Gardner Award in 2001, and died in March 2007.
Read – ‘Ian Wooldridge has died, aged 75’ (March 2007)
Ed Lacey
The Ed Lacey Trophy is awarded to the Canon SJA Sports Photographer of the Year.
Lacey began his photographic career with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.
After demobilisation, he joined Cable and Wireless but continued to take pictures for the South London Press before receiving a commission from the Daily Mirror. The Rome Games of 1960 were the first Olympics that he covered.
He did not become a full-time photographer until the age of 44, but was known for his work in athletics and rugby union.
Amongst his most notable images was a picture of Bob Beamon setting the world record at the Mexico Olympics, and an early picture of heavyweight boxer Joe Bugner as a schoolboy athlete.
He assembled a substantial library of images and his work appeared extensively in the Observer newspaper.
Lacey’s last assignment was the Wightman Cup tennis match in 1976. He was killed in a car accident at Great Bookham in Surrey whilst travelling to process the images of the match.
Phil Sheldon
The Photography section award for Specialist Sports Portfolio was renamed the Phil Sheldon Trophy on his passing in 2005.
Sheldon studied at Harrow College before joining the Sport and General Press Agency.
It was said that one of his earliest assignments was to cover the elusive Lord Lucan.
He soon concentrated on sport and particularly golf, freelancing for the Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times before joining the Mail on Sunday.
Later, he returned to freelancing and forged a reputation as one of the finest golf photographers in the world. He was voted photographer of the year by Sport England on three occasions
He covered 11 Ryder Cups, and the Open Championship on 25 occasions. He also covered 24 Masters Tournaments, 21 US Open Championships, 25 Open and 18 US PGA Championships.
In the course of his career, he photographed over 300 golf courses.
In 2004, he became the first recipient of the Lawrence Levy Lifetime Achievement Award, presented in conjunction with Golf International Magazine to honour outstanding work in golf photography.
Sheldon served on the SJA committee, and Peter Alliss described him as a “tremendous photographer… he has an engaging personality and is a real professional.”
Mike Dickson
The trophy for the Specialist Correspondent winner in the Writing section has been known since the 2023 Awards as the Mike Dickson Trophy.
Dickson sadly passed away at the age of just 59 while covering the Australian Open in January 2024.
He had been the Daily Mail’s tennis correspondent since 2009, and before that, the paper’s cricket correspondent.
He spent 38 years in the sports journalism industry, 33 of them with the Mail whom he joined in 1990.
Matthew Ashton
For the 2024 edition of the Photography Awards, the Football Portfolio category was renamed in memory of Matthew Ashton, who passed away in January 2025 at the age of 53.
In 2006, Ashton founded his own football photography agency, AMA Sports Photo Agency.
He was a founding member of the Football Photographers’ Association and a hugely popular figure in the industry.
Read – ‘Matthew Ashton’s talent, generosity and passion for Shrewsbury Town remembered in tributes’
SJA British Sports Awards
JL Manning
The JL Manning Award is given for services off the field of play. Its first recipient in 1974 was former FIFA President, Sir Stanley Rous.
The son of a sports journalist, James Lionel “Jim” Manning wrote as “JL” Manning.
He had been sports editor of the Sunday Chronicle and Sunday Dispatch before joining the Daily Mail in 1954. He became Chairman of our association in 1955 and stood unsuccessfully for parliament in the Enfield East constituency.
From 1969, he was a trenchant columnist for the Evening Standard.
He was also a regular contributor to BBC Radio’s ‘Sports Report’ and made his final broadcast from his hospital bed only a few days before he died in January 1974. He had been made an OBE in the New Year Honours.
In his obituary, Robin Marlar described Manning’s writing style as “vintage pepper.”
Peter Wilson
The Peter Wilson Trophy recognises the best international newcomers / breakthrough athletes of the year.
Wilson, who died in 1981, was known as “The Man They Couldn’t Gag.”
He worked for The Times, Exchange Telegraph, Daily Mirror and Sunday Pictorial before the Second World War.
He covered the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where his notebook was confiscated by a Gestapo officer, and reported on every subsequent Games to Munich 1972, and otherwise specialised in boxing and tennis.
In December 1947, he was still with the Sunday Pictorial when he had been one of those to attend an “exploratory meeting” which led to the establishment of our Association the following year.
He was elected as a member of the first committee and served as President in 1955.
After a spell at the Daily Express, he joined the Daily Mirror where he became the self-styled “Man They Couldn’t Gag”, which also became the title of his autobiography in 1977.
His father and son were also sports journalists.
Pat Besford
The award for outstanding performance of the year was renamed in Besford’s honour in 1989.
An outstanding swimming journalist for almost 40 years, she joined the Association in 1961.
Author of an exhaustive and authoritative encyclopaedia of swimming, she covered every Olympic Games from 1948 to 1984 and also the early swimming world championships.
She served on the committee from 1969 to 1988 and in 1976, she became the first woman to lead our Association.
She was Olympic press attaché from 1976 until her passing in 1988.
Bill McGowran
The Bill McGowran Award was inaugurated in 1963 for athletes with a disability and is now awarded to the outstanding man and woman in British parasports, in consultation with the British Paralympic Association.
McGowran began his working career in Derby and then worked for the Continental Daily Mail before a move to the London Evening News.
He had originally hoped to become a drama critic but was appointed chief news sub-editor and then turned to sport. He became sports editor before later writing a column for the paper.
He covered four Olympic Games and his obituary in The Times wrote of his “cheerful gregarious personality.”
He succeeded the first Sports Writers’ Association chairman Harry England, and served in the role until 1953. He had a second spell as chairman in 1960 and was also bulletin editor from 1956 until his passing in 1963.