“It has been an incredible couple of years, and I just feel really, really grateful to have been given an opportunity to fulfil my wildest dreams,” Earps said at the ceremony. “It is beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I cannot believe I am standing up here – and I had a long walk in this dress and these heels. It’s a bit ridiculous.”

Accepting the award, she added: “It feels pretty great off the back of a couple of really big years and 2023 has been wild in ways I couldn’t expect. I’m really, really grateful.”

Online, some people have been trying to claim that Earps doesn’t deserve her win – as if all the evidence presented above (which, by the way, is just the tip of the iceberg) isn’t enough proof of her success.

But luckily enough, there are also plenty of people out there celebrating Earps’s win and spotlighting the incredible run she and the Lionesses have had over the last couple of years. Here are just a few of our favourite reactions to the win.

Sports Personality of the Year 2023: all the best reactions to Mary Earps’s win