It is with great sadness that we have learned of the passing today of our insidethegames colleague Alan Hubbard, who in a career of almost 70 years, crossed paths with anybody who mattered in the world of sport and celebrities from many other walks of life. 

I had a call last week on behalf of the Organising Committee of the Rio Olympics as, I imagine, did some of my colleagues.

Exactly 50 years ago last weekend 41,000 people streamed into Arsenal’s old ground at Highbury to witness Muhammad Ali thwart a revenge bid by Henry Cooper, keeping his world heavyweight title by opening a deep, jagged cut in the sixth round on the Londoner’s left eyebrow.

At least one Brit named Khan scored a knock-out victory in a catchweight contest over a bigger opponent this weekend.

Back in February 1976 when I edited the magazine Sportsworld, then the official publication of the British Olympic Association, I received a telephone call from a Melbourne radio station in the middle of the night following the British figure skater John Curry’s breathtakingly artistic gold medal-winning performance in the Innsbruck Winter Games.  

How’s this for a spot of name-dropping? Forty-five years ago last week I was in the gents at Madison Square Garden having a pee when a man in a trilby standing next to me turned his head and nodded: ”Howya doing pal?”

It seems pleasingly appropriate that as an absorbing exhibition of the life and times of Muhammad Ali opens in London, the wordsmith who immortalised so many of the exploits in and out of the ring for British fans should himself be in the limelight and subject to tributes from within the game.

Those close to Lord Sebastian Coe say he has aged ten years in the six months he has been President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), hardly surprising in view of the pile of manure into which he has trodden.

For years now exiles and émigrés have been a major component in the rich fabric of boxing, dating back well before the lifting of the Iron Curtain in 1991. This opened the floodgates for such as the Klitschkos and now those big-hitting Beasts from the East, Gennady Golovkin and Sergey Kovalev, to exert so much influence on the professional game.

The serious injury sustained by the former British gymnastic queen Beth Tweddle - she has fractured two vertebrae in her neck - while taking part in the Channel 4 TV reality game show The Jump is a stark reminder of the dangers of launching oneself through space, fingers crossed rather than skis, and praying for a happy landing. 

The news that Frank Bruno, Britain’s most beloved boxing figure, wanted to make a comeback at 54 was not the best news the sport could have had at a time when it is riding higher in public esteem than for many years.

The English Football Association have just appointed Baroness Sue Campbell as their new head of women’s football. Now I have a lot of time for Sue, who has been one of the most formidable, influential and successful females in British sport.

Anyone wishing Amir Khan a Happy New Year is risking a right-hander from the normally amiable boxer from Bolton who won a nation’s heart in Athens back in 2004 when, as a 17-year-old, he fought a solo battle for Britain in the Olympics, losing only to the Cuban Mario Kindelan, then the world's finest amateur, in the final.

You could understand it if both Louis van Gaal and Lord Sebastian Coe called their respective newsagents and demanded: "Please cancel my papers indefinitely". 

Twenty-fifteen: The year in which the high and mighty fell to earth with a resounding thump.