Scotland's Number 1 Sportsfan 2008

[Deleted]

Shumi/Sube I hope you don't mind me posting this.

Edinburgh Monarchs' fan Stevie Gilroy (he of the fame of bringing Thomas H Jonasson to Edinburgh's notice) has asked me to post this on his behalf.

It would be good if we could all vote for Mike and those of you who know him will see him as a really deserving candidate

Background
I don't know if anyone seen the publicity this event has gathered lately with full page articles in the Scottish Sun and a load of TV coverage through the 5.30 show on STV as well as Scotsport. Due to the describtion of what the competition was looking for, I took the liberty of nominating Mike Hunter for the category of Male 16+ (4 cats. are female / male under 16 and female / male over 16). Full details can be found by clicking HERE

First Stage
I have just received an email saying that the judging panel have declared Mike the winner for the over 16 Male category! This automatically generates a prize of a trip to a sporting event to the value of £1,000.

What happens next?
Well Mike is now in a 4way contest to be named "Scotland's Sports Fan" of 2008. A public vote will be held and advertised in the Scottish Sun as well as each category winner getting a slot on the 5.30 show from week commencing 7th April! Fame or what

The overall winner of this competition gets a trip of a lifetime to any Sporting Event of their choice to the tune of £10,000! It'd be lovely to see Mike win this competition! I'm sure he'll be more delighted at the amount of publicity it will generate for the Monarchs rather than his chances of winning!

Once I find out voting dates etc I will update here but obviously everyone who feels like Mike is deserving of this award should get their voting fingers at the ready!!!

[admin]

midnightlady said:

Shumi/Sube I hope you don't mind me posting this.

Edinburgh Monarchs' fan Stevie Gilroy (he of the fame of bringing Thomas H Jonasson to Edinburgh's notice) has asked me to post this on his behalf.

It would be good if we could all vote for Mike and those of you who know him will see him as a really deserving candidate

Background
I don't know if anyone seen the publicity this event has gathered lately with full page articles in the Scottish Sun and a load of TV coverage through the 5.30 show on STV as well as Scotsport. Due to the describtion of what the competition was looking for, I took the liberty of nominating Mike Hunter for the category of Male 16+ (4 cats. are female / male under 16 and female / male over 16). Full details can be found by clicking HERE

First Stage
I have just received an email saying that the judging panel have declared Mike the winner for the over 16 Male category! This automatically generates a prize of a trip to a sporting event to the value of £1,000.

What happens next?
Well Mike is now in a 4way contest to be named "Scotland's Sports Fan" of 2008. A public vote will be held and advertised in the Scottish Sun as well as each category winner getting a slot on the 5.30 show from week commencing 7th April! Fame or what

The overall winner of this competition gets a trip of a lifetime to any Sporting Event of their choice to the tune of £10,000! It'd be lovely to see Mike win this competition! I'm sure he'll be more delighted at the amount of publicity it will generate for the Monarchs rather than his chances of winning!

Once I find out voting dates etc I will update here but obviously everyone who feels like Mike is deserving of this award should get their voting fingers at the ready!!!

Of course we don't mind - I can't think of a valid reason for minding.
And I wish young Hunter every success in this, although I still can't see how a trip to the Scottish Open at Armadale can be stretched out to cost £10,000.

[Deleted]

UPDATE - THURSDAY 3rd APRIL

Mike was filmed today by the 5.30 show crew and informed of the process that the public vote will take.
The vote will be conducted online through the STV website and all 4 winners will have a slot on the 5.30 show next week. All 4 clips will be available to view online before voting. This goes live on Monday I believe.
Mike's slot seems to be next Thursday (whilst on the way to Redcar!) but as I say all clips will be online anyway.
Once the vote goes live we will get the link up here and around the Speedway forums encouraging the community to vote for him!
There is a good piece in the Speedway Star this week and they plan to carry the story through the voting process. Nigel Pearson is also keen to do a piece for the BSPA website! So hats off to these guys for helping us out!

[Deleted]

VOTING IS NOW LIVE FOR THE TITLE OF SCOTLAND'S NUMBER 1 SPORTS FAN

DO YOU DUTY FOR SPEEDWAY AND VOTE FOR AN EDINBURGH MONARCHS LEGEND IN MIKE HUNTER

VOTE FOR MIKE HERE!!!

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[admin]

As you know, I don't cast my vote lightly, but I've voted for young Hunter.

[admin]

Well, it looks like Mike Hunter won - congratulations to the young fellow. Here's his post on the Monarchs Chatzone regarding the win:

Now that it has been announced that I have won this competition I have a few people to thank.

Firstly of course has to be Stevie Gilroy who planned the whole thing. He asked me a few questions when we travelled to the CIS Cup semi at Hampden but I didn’t know it was for the STV/Sun nomination.

Stevie is a shrewd chap as most will probably know – if he decides something should happen he makes plans to make sure that it does!

He certainly did everything to ensure that anyone who might vote for me knew all about it. He even got in touch with Speedway Star and Nigel Pearson to get the story more publicity.

I thank him most sincerely for his efforts and thoughtfulness.

Also thanks to everyone who has pushed the story round the internet, which I know includes Midnight_Lady and Jamboaud and probably others.

I have had many emails and texts from all over the place (including other countries and other clubs), and many people took the time to congratulate me at Armadale last night.

It was an interesting experience to be at the STV studios yesterday and see how their show is made – it’s quite intense pressure as the programme goes out! I see their presenters in a new light. I have had the pleasure over the last couple of weeks of meeting Gerry McCulloch, the programme presenters Steve and Debi, several camera operators and behind-the-scenes people (including makeup!) and without exception they were extremely helpful and friendly.

STV even paid for my taxi from Glasgow to Armadale - £46! – and of course I have the West Indies trip in February to look forward to now.

I can slide back into the background now where I really prefer to be and let our excellent team take the limelight.

[Deleted]

Congratulations to Mike - really pleased for him.