Danny Willett and Jamie Vardy miss out at Sports Personality of the Year

The Sheffield duo failed to make the top three with the main award handed to tennis ace Andy Murray, as expected.

World number one Murray claimed more than twice the number of votes than second placed Alistair Brownlee, the Olympic triathlon champion.

Veteran showjumper Nick Skelton finished third.

Masters champion Willett was last in the 16 person field, taking 2,227 votes despite becoming only the second Englishman in history to claim the Green Jackett.

Leicester City striker Vardy finished ninth with 25,020 votes.

Vardy set a new Premier League record for consecutive games scored in on the way to Leicester’s incredible run to the league title.

Winner Murray was named Sports Personality of the Year for the third time.

The 29-year-old claimed the award after winning Wimbledon, Olympic gold and finishing the season as the world’s top-ranked male tennis player.

Murray - who took 247,419 votes - was speaking from Miami, where he is training, and admitted the replica trophy he received from former boxer Lennox Lewis was broken.

“I’d like to thank everyone who voted. I really appreciate all of your support,” he said on the BBC. “It’s a bit broken, it’s stuck down with tape. I didn’t break it. They didn’t tell me how it got broken but just if I won just to hold it close to your body so it didn’t fall over.”