The Sports Journalists Association, of which I am a member, have withdrawn their invitation to the new world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury to attend their annual awards and one presumes any votes already cast for him to be their Sportsman of the Year will be discounted.

I was watching a TV re-run of the Thrilla in Manila in the compelling "A Fight to Remember" series on BoxNation this week and as the 14th round, three minutes of unremitting savagery, reached its bloody, bone-juddering conclusion, with a half-blinded Joe Frazier led back to his corner by referee Carlos Padilla, a friend asked: ”Was it because of this that they cut World Championship fights to 12 rounds?” 

The passing of Yogi Berra, the celebrated New York Yankees Hall of Fame baseball catcher who died on Tuesday (September 22) aged 90, has prompted - in respectful and affectionate memory - widespread coverage of his celebrated non-sequiturs and verbal gaffes.

The list of Yogi’s boo-boos - he was said to have been the inspiration for the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Yogi Bear, indeed he even prepared a defamation lawsuit against the company, who insisted it was mere coincidence, before seeing the funny side and withdrawing it - is long. And of course one cannot neglect the opportunity to share again some of the choicer offerings. 

Agents are the bane of sport.

There are more of them around now than the KGB, MI5 and CIA have amassed in all the years they have been in existence. And they are taking over. 

Great Britain suffered defeats in four of the five finals in which they were represented at the EUBC European Confederation Boxing Championships with lightweight Joseph Cordina their sole gold medallist in Samokov, Bulgaria.

Great Britain will be represented in five of the 10 finals at the EUBC European Confederation Continental Championships in Samokov, marking the best performance by a boxing team from England, Scotland and Wales in the 90-year history of the event.

More words have been spilled about the coming confrontation between Floyd Mayweather Jnr and Manny Pacquiao that any previous episode of unarmed combat in history.