Tunde Sulaiman
4 December 2008
London — Crocked Compton football star Theo Walcott is battling Super Eagles skipper Nwankwo Kanu for an award here in England after both players were shortlisted for a BBC South Sports Personality of the Year award.
The former Downs School pupil, who is now an England and Arsenal star, and the Nigerian international made the shortlist in the football category.
They will battle England star and Portsmouth goalkeeper David James for the title.
The event will take place in Southampton on Sunday (December 7) and will also celebrate the achievements of the region's Olympians, Paralympians and unsung heroes.
There are 12 awards being handed out on the night, with the main one, BBC South Sports Personality 2008, being contested by Olympic sailor Ben Ainslie, Olympic rower Steve Williams and Harry Redknapp, who managed Portsmouth Football Club during their successful FA Cup campaign.
The Young Sportsperson of the Year shortlist includes Alex Corbisiero the US-born rugby star who, despite his young age, has established himself as a prop for London Irish.
Cricketer Liam Dawson, the youngest Hampshire player to score a century, is also nominated in the same category.
Champion jockey Tony McCoy is among those nominated for Sportsman of the Year.
Meanwhile, Kanu, who made the list in recognition of his FA Cup final strike last May at Wembley, which brought Portsmouth's first silverware in close to 70 years, has expressed his delight with the nomination even as he focused his mind on tonight's must win UEFA Cup tie against Wolfsburg.
The Super Eagles skipper expressed exclusively. after yesterday morning's training session, his anguish at their failure to take all three points off AC Milan last week.
Portsmouth, who lost their opening UEFA Cup match to Sporting Braga, had surprised many by leading their more illustrious foes at Fratton Park only for them to allow the Italians escape defeat after conceding two late goals, now need to win tonight if they are to stay in the hunt for European glory.
"It's very sad that we failed to make our two goals count. It's because we failed to win that we now find ourselves needing to beat Wolfsburg to stay in. That is football and we need to put that behind us and concentrate on the task at hand.
"At least we've shown that on our day we can mix with the best teams in the world. We now need to show the same commitment in Germany and hopefully the outcome will be different this time around," said the man who scored Pompey's second goal against Milan.
Kanu also confirmed that his compatriot, John Utaka would not be on the flight to Germany because he is nursing an injury.
"John failed to recover and is currently receiving treatment."
In view of the importance of the match, Coach Tony Adams led his team out of England yesterday afternoon so as to have enough time to prepare for the match, in which a draw will be enough to take the Germans into the next round.
The match, which takes place at the Volkswagen Arena, comes up at 8.45pm Nigerian time.
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