BOXING NEWS beat off stiff competition to claim their third consecutive British Sports Journalism Award at the SJA’s 2018 awards ceremony on Monday night (February 26) at Westminster’s Park Plaza.
BN again won the Special Sports Edition category, this time for the well-received 100 Greatest Heavyweight Boxers which followed awards for 2017’s 100 Greatest British Boxers and the tribute issue to Muhammad Ali from 2016.
Editor Matt Christie was surprised to get the nod this year over the highly commended Lev Yashin: From bullet maker to Balon d’Or Winner from the BBC and The Telegraph’s World Cup 2018. The Guardian, The Independent, The Sunday Times and the Daily Mail were the other publications who made the shortlist.
“To stand up here and represent Boxing News while accepting this award from the SJA is both a great surprise and a great honour,” said Christie. “This all began for Boxing News way back in 1909 and since then, the brand has been churning out top content week in, week out. It’s not often I get chance to thank the team for all their hard work but cheers guys, we did it again.”
Host Jim Rosenthal joked, “It’s Boxing News, punching above their weight again.”
There was another win in the Sports Feature Writer category for The Guardian’s Donald McRae, also a keen contributor to Boxing News. There was another winner with links to BN in the shape of the Daily Mail’s Daniel Matthews who once spent time in our offices while he was still at university. The education obviously served him well; he was named as the Young Sports Writer of the year.
Others from the boxing industry who were recognised included the BBC’s Mike Costello, who was highly commended in the Sports Commentator category where Ronald McIntosh was also shortlisted. Steve Bunce made the shortlist for the Sports Pundit award for his work alongside Costello on BBC Radio 5 Live.
