RENOWNED sports journalist Hugh McIlvanney has died aged 84.

Mr McIlvanney, who was born in Kilmarnock, is best known for his work for the Observer and Sunday Times, where he covered some of the significant sporting events of his age –including the 1974 'Rumble in the Jungle' between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.

He started his career on local newspaper the Kilmarnock Standard, before stints at the Scottish Daily Express and The Scotsman.

He retired in 2016, aged 82, after 60 years as a journalist.

Throughout his career, Mr McIlvanney won a string of awards, including an OBE in 1996, a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Scottish Press Awards 2004, and became the only sports writer to be voted Journalist of the Year. 

He was included in the Press Gazette Hall of Fame in 2005 and was named British sports writer of the year seven times.

Hugh McIlvanney's brother was crime novelist William McIlvanney, who died in 2015 at the age of 79.