Mike Atherton named Sports Writer of the Year

	Michael Atherton is the first former sportsman to win Sports Writer of the Year © Getty Images Enlarge
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Michael Atherton, the former England captain, has won the UK's top honour for a sports writer, being named Sports Writer of the Year for 2009 by the Sports Journalists' Association.

Atherton, cricket correspondent of The Times, was acclaimed for his coverage of the 2009 Ashes, with one of the judges, a sports editor, describing him as "peerless in his own sport, entertaining, thought-provoking and challenging on any other subject," and another saying "his elegant style, thoughtful but incisive opinions were, in an Ashes-winning year, indispensable."

In a good evening for Atherton, he was also named Sports Columnist of the Year, highly commended in the Specialist Correspondent category, and took some credit for his commentary work as Sky Sports' Test cricket coverage won the TV Sports Programme award.

Atherton was in Chittagong covering England's tour of Bangladesh when the awards were announced at a gala dinner in London.

Cricket also featured in three other awards, with Gareth Copley winning Sports Picture of the Year for his photo of Jonathan Trott being run out at The Oval, while Lawrence Booth, writing for the Daily Mail, won the online award for a Regular Blog or Column and the BBC's Tom Fordyce took the best Live Blog award.