Jonny Wilkinson humbly accepts knighthood, doesn't get knighthood

England’s World Cup-winning number 10 was widely expected to be honoured with a knighthood in Queen Elizabeth’s New Year’s honours list and even tweeted out what looked like the gist of a humble acceptance speech.

The European and French champion with Toulon did manage to row back on his original (now deleted) Tweet to offer congratulations to all the non-perfect people who did make it on this year’s list.

Maybe next year, JW.

Wilkinson's brother, Mark, was also a Newcastle player who made 16 appearances in the Premiership for the side between 2002 and 2005, predominantly as a centre. His father, Phil, was a rugby player and cricketer, and his mother, Philippa, played squash at county level.  His grandfather, Phil, also played football for Norwich.

When former England centre Jeremy Guscott walked into the dressing room on the day of Wilkinson's international debut, he thought the 18-year-old had won a competition to spend the day with the national team.

Jonny and Shelley became parents for the first time in late 2018. They keep their private life pretty much on lockdown, but according to reports, they had a little boy called James while they were still living in France.

Wilkinson followed Buddhist principles and teachings to help control his perfectionist tendencies, according to an interview he gave with The Times newspaper in 2009.

"Heights. Being stuck in a lift, now we’ve talked about that. And audience participation, the type you get at stage shows. In school, we had three occasions like that and I got selected all three times. I tried different approaches, apart from getting up and running out of the building, and I still got picked every time."