Name Hugh McIlvanney Role Writer | Siblings William McIlvanney | |
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Books McIlvanney On Boxing, McIlvanney on Football, The hardest game, McIlvanney on Horseracing | ||
Hugh McIlvanney winner of the Outstanding Contribution to Sports Writing
Hugh McIlvanney OBE (born 2 February 1934) is an award-winning Scottish sports writer, who had long stints with the British Sunday papers Observer (30 years until 1993) and later 23 years with Sunday Times (1993-2016). After nearly 6 decades in the profession, he retired in March 2016 at the age of 82.
Contents
- Hugh McIlvanney winner of the Outstanding Contribution to Sports Writing
- Journalism career
- Honours
- Personal life
- Works
- References
Journalism career
McIlvanney left Kilmarnock Academy to work at The Kilmarnock Standard as a reporter moving on to the Scottish Daily Express, The Scotsman, The Observer (1963-1993), Daily Express, before joining The Sunday Times in 1993. During his time with the Daily Express he also wrote as a news reporter. He then had a long-running column on the back page of The Sunday Times sports section, from 1993 to 2016. He retired at the age of 82, citing physical demands of the job as having become too taxing.
Honours
In 1996, McIlvanney was awarded the OBE, was given the Lifetime Achievement Award 2004 by The Scottish Press Awards, and is the only sports writer to be voted Journalist of the Year. In 2005, he was included in the Press Gazette Hall of Fame.
In December 2008 he was voted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and he was inducted in 2009.
Personal life
McIlvanney's brother was the novelist and crime fiction writer William McIlvanney.
He has one son, Conn, and a daughter, Elizabeth.