By Graham Houston
IF IT can truly be said that there have been giants in British boxing journalism, then Colin Hart was surely one of them.
Hart, who passed away on March 22 at the age of 89, was a self-described “Jewish boy from east London” who was born in West Ham on April 6, 1935. His interest in boxing was sparked at a young age by tales his father told him of the exploits of the great Jewish fighter, Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis, also born in East London.
I knew Hart for many years. He was a ringside colleague at big fights in the UK and later in the US. Whereas many of the old-school boxing writers simply faded away, often having lost interest in boxing (Peter Wilson, the famous “man they can’t gag” from the Daily Mirror, retired to Majorca, for instance), Colin stayed active till almost the very end, writing a boxing column for The Sun.
He retired as The Sun’s full-time boxing correspondent in the year 2000. “They said: ‘How would you like to write a weekly column for us now you’re leaving?’ Would I? I nearly snapped their hand off,” Hart once told me.
Hart was a great raconteur, amusing and inclusive: He made everyone feel as if they were his friend. I found him always to be obliging. If one needed to check a fact of historical accuracy or jog one’s memory about a particular fight or incident, Hart was always available on the other end of the line.
But although Hart had a reverence for the past he stayed up to date, attending press conferences, going to the fights, keeping in touch with everything that was going on in boxing.
He entered journalism in what now would perhaps seem an unlikely way, as a trainee reporter at the East London Advertiser. He moved up the ladder to become a news reporter, then departed the local paper for the national morning newspaper, the Daily Herald, initially as a general news reporter.
Hart began covering boxing for the Herald (precursor of The Sun) in 1964, and got his break when the Herald’s chief boxing writer (and golf correspondent) Jack Wood left the paper after a disagreement with management. Hart took over as boxing writer as well as covering athletics (or “track and field” as they say in the US).
The first world title fight Hart covered was the Walter McGowan vs Chartchai Chionoi rematch at Wembley Pool in 1967, and his first overseas trip to cover a fight was the third meeting between Howard Winstone and Vicente Saldivar in Mexico City that same year. He was ringside for the Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier epic at Madison Square Garden in March 1971. It was the first world heavyweight title fight that Hart had covered in the States. “Not bad for starters,” as Hart would later comment.
Hart was also ringside for the Rumble in the Jungle between Ali and George Foreman in 1974. It was, he later recounted, the most bizarre boxing event he’d ever covered — bizarre not because of the fight but because of the location — Kinshasa, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo).
As Hart related to Boxing Monthly editor Glyn Leach in a 1998 interview, the dictator Mobutu ruled Zaire with an iron fist. Hart told of going down into the bowels of the country’s national stadium and seeing a wall with “hundreds and hundreds of holes in it; they used to take prisoners down there and shoot them”.
Naturally, Hart fondly remembered the years when boxing was part of the national fabric in Britain. He recalled listening to the 1951 London fight between Randolph Turpin and Sugar Ray Robinson on the radio (Hart was 16 at the time). When Turpin won “the whole nation went bananas,” as Hart told Leach.
But you’d never hear Hart downgrade modern-day boxing or boxers. Too many world champions today? Hart would agree with that up to a point but would argue that more fighters are getting opportunities in the modern era and more fighters are getting big purses, which Hart saw as a thoroughly desirable state of affairs.
I don’t think “Harty” had any enemies in boxing although there were a number of years when he wasn’t on speaking terms with promoter Frank Warren, which Hart put down to an unfortunate misunderstanding, later resolved with a handshake.
With Hart billed as “the Voice of Boxing” by The Sun, it was perhaps inevitable that his paper’s big tabloid rival, the Daily Mirror, would make an approach.
Hart told me that he didn’t try to use this as leverage but did inform the Sun that he had been made an offer by the Mirror. This led to a renegotiated contract with the Sun.
I never discussed this any further with Hart (none of my business) but long-time boxing writer, the late Neil Allen, told me that as part of the agreement Colin asked to fly “up front” on a certain number of overseas trips each year.
“Up front?”
Neil laughed: “He meant: First class!”
And there was no doubt that Hart did a first-class job during his long tenure as the Sun’s boxing writer.
He had his share of scoops, including an exclusive with Muhammad Ali after Ali had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
Hart made some great picks in his big-fight previews, such as Sugar Ray Leonard to beat Marvin Hagler and Ali to KO Foreman in nine rounds, both big upsets. (Hart liked to tell the story that his sports editor cabled him: “Wrong round!” after Ali had KO’d Foreman in the eighth.)
Hart got some predictions wrong, such as Gerry Cooney to KO Michael Spinks in five rounds. “Well, you got the round right,” writer/commentator Reg Gutteridge joked.
But getting a prediction wrong once in a while never particularly bothered Hart. “As long as you’re right more than you’re wrong, you’re doing OK,” he said in the 1998 Boxing Monthly interview.
Hart was at the top of his form in a very different era for boxing writers, when reports were shouted into a ringside telephone to be transcribed by a copy-taker on the other end of the line, and when a leading boxing writer would often be seated literally in the front row, so close to the action that he could reach out and touch the ring canvas.
Times changed, of course, and Hart went along with the changes, still producing riveting articles (such as the revelation only last September in a Sun column that a teenaged Daniel Dubois really did knock out Anthony Joshua in sparring).
Hart was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame (observer category) in 2013.
I can truly say I enjoyed every minute I spent in Hart’s company. He called things the way he saw them but always without the slightest hint of malice. While saddened at his passing, at least I have some of Hart’s best pieces among my boxing files. Whenever I look back on them I will remember Colin, with respect, affection and admiration.
