Sir Kenny Dalglish wins SPOTY Lifetime Achievement award

Liverpool legend Sir Kenny Dalglish has won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement award.

The 72-year-old won eight league titles and three European Cups as a player and manager at Anfield, scoring 172 goals in 515 appearances for the Reds.

Dalglish, who is Scotland's most-capped male player joint record goalscorer, also led Blackburn Rovers to a famous Premier League title in 1994.

"Receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award is truly an honour," he said.

"I have always believed in the importance of team success, and I wouldn't be where I am today without all of the players I've played with, the people I've worked for, and the supporters that stood by me, so this is for them."

Dalglish began his career at Celtic, where he won four Scottish league titles before Liverpool shelled out a then British record transfer fee of £440,000 to bring him to Merseyside.

He scored 31 goals in his debut season, including the only goal in the 1978 European Cup final against Club Brugge, held at Wembley.

Enjoying a wealth of success at Anfield over the next seven years, he made the jump to become player-manager in May 1985, aged 35.

"To go from the dressing room to the manager's office, I wasn't always the most comfortable, but I had fantastic support from senior people at Liverpool," Dalglish said.

"The most comfortable place for me as a player was in the dressing room. I missed the dressing room, but you've got to move on in your life and that is what destiny was telling me, move on."

While already revered for his heroics on the pitch, Dalglish was immortalised in the eyes of Liverpool fans for his actions off it in light of the Hillsborough disaster in the 1989, which saw the death of 97 Reds fans.

The Scot ensured the club was represented at the fans' funerals and helped support bereaved families, along with his wife Marina.

A footballing icon and an all-round incredible human being, there is no-one more fitting of the Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement award.

BBC Sports Personality of the Year takes place on Tuesday, 19 December at MediaCityUK in Salford, where Dalglish will be presented the award,