Colin Hart was a gold mine of information with a near-photographic memory for detail and stories after six decades travelling the globe. He passed away on March 22 after a short illness, just shy of his 90th birthday – he was a friend, colleague and mentor. Hart, with a shock of white hair signalling his arrival, and a smile and steely gaze, could ad lib or hit his typewriter on a number of sports, from boxing and athletics to football, motor racing and even show jumping. He covered eight Olympic Games, four eras of boxing, with The Sun newspaper carrying his byline for 55 years.
Hart – whom I always called Lord Hart of Harrow, though he loved West Ham and was originally from London’s East End – was a friend, colleague, and a great mentor. He read five newspapers a day and had opinions on politics and society that would have stirred thought in leader columns, but it was in boxing that Hart was best known.
He covered fights from the East End of London to Madison Square Garden; from Las Vegas to Kinshasa for the “Rumble in the Jungle” and on to Manila, in the golden age of the heavyweights. He met, and wrote about, all the post-war greats, in Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis, Sir Henry Cooper, Joe Calzaghe and Ricky Hatton, as well as the modern stars Oleksandr Usyk, Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury. He attended seven of the nine fights between Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Roberto Durán and Thomas Hearns, “The Four Kings”. He was close with Leonard, Ali and Foreman.
Indeed, Hart’s first US ringside reporting assignment was “The Fight of the Century” – Ali versus Frazier in 1971 in New York.
Apart from his writing prowess, Hart’s knowledge, experience and voice was employed on BBC radio and television, ITV, Sky Sports, BT Sport, TalkSport radio, and the Showtime network in the United States.
Hart had begun his journalistic career with the East London News Agency at the age of 17 and after two years of National Service, in Cyprus in a Royal Air Force Signals Unit in Akrotiri, he returned to journalism in 1958 as a crime reporter and night news editor with the Daily Herald. In 1962, Hart moved into sports reporting, and in 1964 he joined The Sun. He kept to the old ways to the end, never had a mobile phone, and had an incredible memory for telling, and for discerning the very best articles. His “Voice of Boxing” column until his passing was always razor sharp and had pithiness, panache and, of course, punch.
Famously, and bizarrely given that Foreman passed on the same day, they fell out in Caracas, Venezuela, ahead of Foreman’s title fight with Ken Norton in 1974. Hart loved to tell the story of visiting Foreman poolside in Venezuela. “I chain-smoked at the time, and he said to me ‘hey you, put that out!’
“Now, I’m an old-fashioned East Ender, as in I don’t take any nonsense, so I said ‘say please’.”
Unfortunately, Foreman growled at Hart, and Bill Caplan, Foreman’s long-time publicist, dived in to save Hart from being slapped. Later, Hart and Foreman became the best of friends. Hart is survived by his wife Cindy, two daughters and four grandchildren. Hart has always generously passed on the mores of journalism to countless others coming through, myself included, and the fact that he continued writing and reporting to the last bears out what he had always said “that being ringside is one of the great jobs in journalism”. Colin was right, and his was a life lived to the full.
Cindy, whom he met in Naples where their romance began almost 60 years ago, sent out a message to friends on Saturday evening. “Sad day. Colin died today around 4:00. All close family members were at his bedside. He died so very peacefully. How good is that! X.” Colin Hart. RIP.