Colin Hart dead at 89: The Sun’s legendary Voice of Boxing passes away

COLIN HART, Flying Eze’s legendary Voice of Boxing for more than half a century, has died aged 89.

Hart was a member of this newspaper’s original sports desk when Flying Eze was launched in 1969 and continued to write brilliant columns for us until just weeks before his death.

As our boxing and athletics correspondent, Hart covered hundreds of world title fights as well as eight Olympic Games from 1972 until 2000.

But it was in the fight game, where he made his most significant mark.

In fact, he covered all of the epic heavyweight clashes involving Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and Joe Frazier, as well as British greats from Henry Cooper to Anthony Joshua.

He even had a ringside seat for the iconic Rumble in the Jungle, where Ali upset the odds to knock out Foreman in the eighth round of an all-time classic in Zaire.

Hart described the fight as the “most bizarre 10 days” of his life.

Many of the sport’s biggest names became personal friends of Hart – the man Ali trusted to break news of his diagnosis with Parkinson’s disease.

And Hart was at ringside in Riyadh just last year to witness Tyson Fury’s first professional defeat against Oleksandr Usyk.

One of Fleet Street’s finest operators, Hart was a newshound, a wordsmith and a world-renowned authority on boxing history as well as a shrewd analyst of the modern game.

Admired by everyone in his sport and read by millions, Hart is believed to be the only working journalist in the country who never owned a mobile phone.

The Londonder, a lifelong match-going West Ham United supporter, died just weeks short of what would have been his 90th birthday on April 6.

He experienced the Blitz as a young child and attended his first boxing show at West Ham baths as a 10-year-old in 1945.

Hart is survived by his wife Cindy, daughters Laura and Lisa and his grandchildren.