second series of The X Factor in front of judges Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh. He impressed all three judges and passed through to the next round. His category, 16 to 24-year-olds, was then mentored by Walsh, and Ward was chosen to be among Walsh's top four contestants and perform on the live shows. Ward quickly became the bookmakers' favourite to win the show, and after making it to the grand final, he defeated Cowell's duo Journey South and Osbourne's over-25 singer Andy Abraham and was crowned as the winner. He had not fallen into the bottom two throughout the entire competition, and won by a margin of 1.2% of the vote, out of a reported 10.8 million phone votes cast by viewers. Immediately after the competition, his X Factor mentor Walsh became his manager under a joint venture with Global Publishing and Walsh Global Management. Immediately after his victory on The X Factor, Ward signed a recording contract with Syco Music and his first single, "That's My Goal", was released in the UK on Wednesday, 21 December 2005. After selling 742,000 copies in the first week, including 313,000 on its first day, it became the Christmas number one single of 2005, held the top spot for four weeks and stayed in the top 75 until June 2006, a 21-week run. It became, at that time the fourth-fastest-selling UK single of all time, beaten only by Elton John's "Candle in the Wind", Will Young's "Anything Is Possible/Evergreen", and Gareth Gates' "Unchained Melody" which sold 685,000, 403,000 and 335,000 copies in their first days of sale, respectively. To date, "That's My Goal" has sold over 1.3 million copies in the UK. Ward also won an Ivor Novello Award for being the Best Selling Single. Ward's second single, "No Promises", a cover of a Bryan Rice song was released on 10 April 2006, and peaked at number two (behind "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley) in the UK Singles Chart. Shayne Ward, his self-titled debut album was released on 17 April 2006. It sold 201,266 copies in the first week and entered the albums chart at number one. To date, the album has sold 520,000 copies in the UK and a further 2,000,000 worldwide, reaching number one in eight other countries. The album was certified platinum. Ward's third single was "Stand by Me". It was confirmed in Gary Barlow's autobiography My Take,