Meet the Leeds-based company that made the Sports Personality of the Year trophies sparkle

The company’s core business is the application of specialist coatings to metal products in the industrial sector to protect them from corrosion or increase electrical conductivity.

However, every so often the company is asked to do something a bit different.

Silchrome can also supply coatings to improve the way products look and this side of the business can lead to interesting projects including the most recent one received for the BBC.

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, managing director Austen Thwaite said: “I just received an email out of the blue asking if we were interested in doing it.”

The trophy for each winner is a silver four-turret lens camera.

"The trophies came to us in individual pieces for polishing, they went back to another company for engraving and then came back to us for plating and were assembled afterwards,” Mr Thwaite said.

The trophy polishing took three days and another couple of days for the plating, he added.

"It was quite tight in the end,” he said. “It happens a lot to companies like ours as we’re right at the end of the supply chain so if there are any delays further up the chain, they’ll come to us and say ‘we need them next week’.

"We have to squeeze these jobs in because they’re usually close to the deadline.”

The contract may have been small – a few thousand pounds – but because the work was broadcast to millions on the BBC’s flagship annual sports programme it was a significant project for the company, which has a £2.5m turnover and emoloys 32 people.

Mr Thwaite said: “I watched it on telly and I thought ‘wow that’s great’. It makes you feel proud.”

In the past, Silchrome has silver-plated unique artifacts for silver weddings, axes as retirement gifts for Firefighters, a chandelier for church ceremonies and different parts for vintage and high performance cars.

"These unique projects are always interesting to get involved in and enable our staff to show their skills to a wider audience which they enjoy”, Mr Thwaite said.

In the last couple of months, the company has completed £40,000 worth of silver plating work.

In addition to the Sports Personality of the Year project, it also received a large contract to silver plate heat shields for a UK rocket maker that hopes to become a major player in space.

"We did some trials for them two or three years ago and we got a small order on the back of that,” said Mr Thwaite. “Then we got a very big order from them. They’re a very good client for us.”

Looking to the year ahead, Mr Thwaite said the company would continue to invest in new facilities and upgrade its existing facilities. He is also keeping his fingers crossed for a second Sports Personality of the Year contract at the end of 2024. "As with all our customers, if we get it right, they’re not interested in going anywhere else,” he said.