Martin Smith: Sheffield's SPOTY hero Tobias Weller shows the true meaning of sport

Forced changing-room humour missing the mark, more 21st century glamour instead of old-time BBC formality, same old same old?

But no. There is just no stopping sport, or the people who take part in it.

We might be able to slip out and put the kettle on when best coach Jurgen Klopp flashes his gnashers for the camera, remember to iron a shirt while Lewis Hamilton shows us his Christmas tree.

Both great champions, both worthy winners, both already amply rewarded.

But try turning away with a sigh when Sheffield’s Tobias Weller fills the screen with his irresistible smile and the towering courage that raised £150,000 for his school by his walking two marathons

Be tempted to check your phone as 100-year-old Captain Tom Moore does one more lap of the garden that became as well-known as our own backyards over the summer as he raised £33 million for the NHS by walking, walking, walking.

Neither a sportsman in any conventional sense of the word but both embodying the essence of all that is good about sport.

Effort, discipline, camaraderie and a refusal to yield to fatigue or self-doubt.

All winners have those qualities, many losers also. Not everyone can be a champion.

But the spirit of sport teaches us that every competitor brings something of themselves to be challenged, tested and judged.

We love sport even though it brings more pain than glory.

We love real life heroes like Tom and nine-year-old Tobias who is autistic and has cerebral palsy, because they went beyond their limitations to fulfil a potential they weren’t sure they had until they achieved it.

At the SPOTY awards on Sunday night in Salford, Tobias was joined by other extraordinary youngsters – five-year-old Betty-Leigh Allinson raised £33,000 for a hospice, Shetland’s Brynn Hauxwell aged 15, raised £7,000 by travelling 1,679 miles his wheelchair, 14-year-old football coach Ebony and Teo from Surrey who raised thousands for UNICEF by running in his garden.

Professional sport in the 21st century is a full-on global force that sometimes seems a bit too slick and self-interested to be any more than another money-maker.

But at its core is the same spirit of human endeavour that drove and motivated Tom, Tobias and all the other unsung heroes to their life-affirming achievements.