Sporting history could be made in Waterford on Saturday week.

January in recent years has become the time of the year when monthly award winners come together and an overall award winner from each month is picked.

One of the biggest nights in the sporting calendar across the country is the Annual Park Hotel Sports Start of the Month award.

Now in its twenty fifth year the competition has grown from strength to strength with some of Waterford’s greatest sporting stars walking away with the overall gong in late January the year after they won a monthly award.

The list of winners is like a who’s who of sport.

The first winner for 1991 was the legendry cyclist Sean Kelly. Since then the likes of Waterford hurlers Tony Browne Paul Flynn, Ken McGrath and Dan Shanahan, show jumper Captain John Ledingham, boxer Neil Gough, jockey’s David Casey and Tom Queally, international soccer player John O’Shea, golfers Eddie Power Seamus Power and rally driver Craig Breen have been amongst the overall winners.

Thankfully down the years, the judges of the awards have recognised Waterford women that are involved in different sports.

Athlete Susan Smith was the first woman to win the overall award back in 1996 and since then Kate Veale and Niamh Briggs have also won the overall award.

And while the number of women to win the overall award, when it comes to the monthly awards down the years women and those working within women’s sports have faired much better.

The monthly award on 43 occasions in the competitions 25 year history has been won by those involved in Athletics and over half of these awards have gone to women.

Kelly Proper leads the way when it comes to athletics winning seven monthly awards. Not far behind her is Susan Smith with four monthly awards, while Kate Veale has won a monthly award on three occasions, Brid Golden and Niamh Whelan have won two monthly awards each while Mairead Murphy, Mairead Deavy, Megan Kiely and Jessie Barr have all won a monthly award once each.

Ladies Football has had nine monthly awards. Former manager of the Waterford senior ladies football team Michael Ryan has won the award on three occasions while there was one monthly award each for Michael’s sister Bernie as well as Áine Wall, Marie Crotty, Caithriona Casey and Mary O’Rourke who were part of the all conquering Waterford team of the 90’s while Linda Wall who captained the county to All-Ireland Intermediate Glory in 2015 have one award won each.

Basketball has also done well with Gillian Hayes winning three monthly awards, Caithriona White had two monthly awards and there is one each for Christina Kiely, Orla Dempsey, Mary and Kim Fitzpatrick, Michelle Aspel and current Wildcats player Sinead Deegan.

In Swimming Shauna O’Brien has won five monthly awards and Rebecca O’Meara has one. In ladies Rugby Niamh Briggs has won five monthly awards, in soccer Ciara Grant who played over 100 times for the Republic of Ireland and who won many honours with an all conquering Arsenal Ladies side have won three monthly awards, while there has also been awards for Suzzane O’Brien in Golf, Colm Bonner, Padraig Fanning and Caithriona McGlone in Camogie, Lynne McEnery in boxing, Róisín Foley in Hockey, Susan McGill for the Special Olympics and Niamh Coffey in Racquetball, all with one monthly award each.

Of the monthly award winners in 2015 four of the monthly awards have gone to women including three of the last four months.

Irish international rugby player Niamh Briggs was the winner in March. The Abbeyside woman put in a number of outstanding performances as captain of the side in 2015 including in the record 73-3 win over Scotland in Cumbernauld to win the Triple Crown and also in the 20-0 win over Wales earlier in the competition.

September was a magnificent month for Women’s sports in Waterford as the county captured All-Ireland Glory at Croke Park in Camogie and in Ladies Football both against Kildare at Croke Park.

To choose one code over the other would have been a difficult task for the judges as the September winner so it was no great surprise to see both codes selected with respective captains Caithriona McGlone in Camogie and Linda Wall in Ladies Football picked as joint winners.

In October Kilmeaden’s Shauna O’Brien was selected as the monthly winner after she impressed while swimming for UCD at the Manchester International Swim breaking Irish records three times at the meet in the 50 and 100 metre fly and the 50 metre butterfly.

In December the award was won by Sinead Deegan of the Maxol WIT Wildcats who put together a string of fine results to reach the semi finals of the National Cup in which they lost out to UL Huskies recently.

Other monthly awards in 2015 were Waterford footballer Thomas O’Gorman in January after he captained the Waterford team to win a first McGrath Cup in 34 years.

John Kiely was the February winner after he trained Carlingford Lough to win the Hennessy Gold Cup at Leopardstown.

The April award was shared by Thomas Barr and Daryl Murphy. Thomas Barr was picked after he was voted the European Athlete of the Month after winning the 400 metre hurdles event in America which won him a place to compete at the world championships in Beijing while Daryl Murphy had another impressive month in the colours of Ipswich Town in a season in which he scored 27 goals.

In May Kevin Moran was the winner after he captained Waterford to win the National Hurling League, Craig Breen was the winner in June after he won the ERC Rally in Portugal, Thomas Barr was again the winner in July when he won a gold medal at the World University Championships, Gary Hurley was the winner in August after he won a place on the Walker Cup team and in November Henry De Bromhead was the winner after five of his horses finished in the winners enclosure.

So who will be this year’s winner and how will history be made.

Any of the winners would be a worthy winner. The fact that something appears here suggests that in my view once of the women that won the monthly awards will be the overall winner, but which one of them will it be.

Looking at the five winners (four months, one of which was a shared award), any of them would be a worthy winner but it might be hard for the judges to look past Irish rugby captain Niamh Briggs for the award this year, which would mean that she would join Tom Queally as the only person to win the award three times and the first to win the award three times in a row.