GREATEST MANCUNIAN

Last updated : 04 November 2002 By editor

From MEN:

‘Heaven knows, he may be still as miserable as ever, but the former Smiths man polled almost SEVEN times as many votes in the M.E.N. Greatest Mancunian poll as his nearest rival, computer pioneer Alan Turing.

The eighties icon collected almost as many votes as the other 49 contenders in our list of suggestions. The M.E.N. result echoes a New Musical Express poll which saw the Smiths voted the most influential band of all time.

But the success of the man who once sang, "Oh Manchester, so much to answer for" - and now lives in Los Angeles - will dismay many readers who voted in the poll we launched in response to the popularity of the BBC Great Britons series. They will be particularly disappointed at the showing of two of Manchester's music maestros, Sir Charles Halle and Sir John Barbirolli, who could each only muster 150th of Morrissey's total.

But they can be assured that we had the technology in place to ensure it was strictly one vote per computer.

Rusholme registrar and suffragette Emmiline Pankhurst came third and Bolton comedian Peter Kay, once running neck and neck with Bernard Manning, streaked ahead over the last few days to take fourth place.

In sport, the late Sir Matt Busby came fifth, marginally ahead of Sir Alex Ferguson - both attracting more than twice as many votes as England captain David Beckham.

Paul Ilett, from international pollsters Mori, explained our curious result. He said: "People who enter internet polls tend to be men under 35. They tend to outnumber the 'silver surfers' by quite a lot."