West Ham lost another local lad yesterday with the news that esteemed boxing journalist Colin Hart had passed away.
Ordinarily, we wouldn’t cover the passing of someone from another sport here—but the coincidence of Colin passing away precisely twelve months to the day after Claret & Hugh founder Hughie Southon wasn’t lost on me.
Hughie and I spoke about Colin many times over the years. The two were old colleagues and had worked alongside each other as part of the old-school Fleet Street journalism scene. While Hughie went on to become a football correspondent and Bobby Moore’s ghost-writer, Hart focused primarily on boxing and athletics.
Born in West Ham in 1935, Colin Hart became widely known as ‘the voice of boxing’. During the 1980s and 1990s, alongside the legendary Harry Carpenter, he was regarded as one of the premier boxing journalists in the world.
Despite covering global icons like Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, Colin never forgot his East London roots. He would regularly call Hughie to get the latest West Ham and England gossip.
It just struck me that exactly one year after we lost Hughie, his old mate Colin has now departed too. A journalistic great, without question.
On a side note, I’d like to thank everyone who left kind messages on the anniversary of Hughie’s passing yesterday. Your posts were a great comfort to his family.
