THE last-minute nerves will be the same for Gary Lineker backstage at the SSE Hydro tonight as they were before his first appearance in front of a sell-out Glasgow crowd 30 years ago.

Thankfully, the reception that awaits him promises to be rather warmer.

Along with Clare Balding and Gabby Logan, Lineker will have the task of entertaining 12,000 paying customers and a live TV audience stretching into the millions as host of the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year award. Three decades ago there were 73,064 rather less charitable paying customers watching him in a 1-1 draw in the Home Inter-national Championships.

"I made my debut here in '84, coming on as a sub against Scotland at Hampden, which was obviously one of the proudest moments of my life," England's all-time leading scorer said. "I was also hugely considerate in the sense that I never actually scored against Scotland. I am sure you will all appreciate that. That is why I thought it was safe to come back.

"Mind you, the atmosphere when you are part of the England football team at Hampden is obviously quite different to if you are part of the England team at the Commonwealth Games. The Scottish people didn't just get behind Scotland, they got behind England, Wales and Northern Ireland too. It was terrific."

This will be the first time in its 61-year history that this staple of BBC's Yuletide scheduling has ventured North of Hadrian's wall and with Glasgow hosting a successful Commonwealth Games and Europe winning a dramatic Ryder Cup at Gleneagles, the glamour Hydro bash will be putting the tin lid on a mighty year of Scottish sport.

"As part of the BBC team for the Commonwealth Games, I was privileged to spend a couple of weeks up here and experience the warmth of the Scottish people in general and Glaswegians in particular," Lineker said. "The sun shone, it was great, and the whole thing made a real impression on me. The organisation, the friendliness of everyone was exemplary. It was just a really good experience for a couple of weeks.

"I didn't make it to the Ryder Cup. It didn't quite fit - it conflicted too much with the football. And anyway I quite like watching the Ryder Cup on the telly. Scotland really has been a pivotal part of the sporting year, and it is only fitting that the BBC Sports Personality of the Year should be in Glasgow this year. I am really looking forward to it."

There is, perhaps, only one small problem. When a distinguished panel consisting of former athletes - Denise Lewis, Rebecca Adlington, Tanni Grey-Thompson and footballer Jason Roberts - three BBC executives, four journalists and Louise Martin, the chair of funding body sportscotland, met to thrash out the 10-strong list of nominees for this year's main award, they decreed that no Scottish-born sports people were worthy heirs to Andy Murray's win last year.

Thus, the parochial focus will fall on golf's amateur champion Bradley Neil, who is vying for the Young Sports Person of the Year award (see below), while Sir Chris Hoy has been wheeled out for a lifetime achievement award.

"You won it last year, come on!" joked Lineker. "No, it is a very, very prestigious list of people who decide on the top 10 so if you want to argue with them you can. But I wasn't involved in it."

The reason for Lineker's pre-event nerves is the chaotic nature of live televised performances such as this. His suave, one-time co-host Des Lynam once called the opening theme music the "best laxative known to man" and the opportunities for things to veer off script have only increased in the years since the event has been taken on the road.

You only need to look at the last two years, and the difficulties involving a certain 27-year-old from Dunblane. Lineker was Master of Cerem- onies in 2012 when Andy Murray had to present himself with the third-place award after Lennox Lewis missed his cues on a live video-link to Miami. And last year there were more comic capers when the Scot won the award.

"You do have moments like that," said Lineker. "Even last year, when I was to interview Andy Murray by satellite, we cued up the film and all I was getting in my ear was 'Andy is still in the shower, he is still in the shower'.

"So someone said 'get his mum out of the audience', and one of our guys ran round to get Judy. She was saying 'no, you can't put me on there' but she came on and was brilliant. We did about five or six minutes, and I used pretty much all my questions that I was going to use on Andy. He eventually did come out, about seven or eight minutes late, but she really saved the day. These sort of things can happen. And it always seems to be with Andy Murray."

But Lineker wouldn't have it any other way.

"This is unquestionably the trickiest thing that we do in television, for all sorts of reasons," he said. "You can rehearse your lines to camera, but you can't rehearse your interviews and you are basically dealing with very nervous people. Also the technicalities are quite difficult, it is a big live outside broadcast and there is such an atmosphere that it is almost impossible to hear any talkback in your ear. The show always overruns, so we are always getting huge pressure to stop people talking too much, which is obviously difficult because everybody deserves a fair amount of time.

"In the TV centre, there were about 300 invited guests and it was always really flat. You just got nothing back from them. Nowadays people are there because they want to be, they are there to have a good time and show their appreciation of people's dazzling sporting years. It makes it such a great event. For me, it is almost like playing again."

The consensus is that this year's main event is a shoot-out between double 2014 Major winner Rory McIlroy and newly-crowned Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton, with honourable mentions to the likes of Gareth Bale, who scored a goal in the final as Real won the Champions League, and boxing's Carl Froch.

"It is important I don't give my own opinion but there are a number of weighty contenders," said Lineker. "Rory, with two Majors and the Ryder Cup triumph, and Lewis, the motor racing world champion, are the obvious two for people looking at it. But there have been some hugely emotional, important performances from people like Jo Pavey and Gareth Bale, and some great performances in the Commonwealth Games. We have a very strong top 10 but round about June I wasn't sure the line-up would look so strong."

As for Lineker's own designs on this famous old trophy, Paul Gascoigne's tears washed away his chances of winning it in 1990, while Nigel Mansell and the Formula One block vote put paid to his hopes in 1986, when he won the World Cup golden boot. "The way it is now, if I had done what I did in '86 I would probably have won it," he said. "But in those days it was all postal voting and the Formula One world championships always finishes just before it. Nothing against Nigel Mansell ... but he was second that year."