Most of the recent tributes to the former Hibernian FC owner and leading Edinburgh bookmaker Kenny Waugh have only mentioned his connection with boxing en passant. But I knew him well as the huge boxing fan and contributor that he was in promulgating the noble art in eastern Scotland and nationally. This was a result of my being a lifetime trustee of Edinburgh's Sparta amateur boxing club in McDonald Road which Kenny himself acknowledged played a big part in his own amateur boxing career - a career which saw him win titles at 60kgs (lighweight) in the early 1950s.

Kenny's time as an amateur boxer also meant he rubbed shoulders with men like Sparta's former British featherweight champion, Bobby Neill who coached world champions like Alan Minter and Lloyd Honeyghan to world title glory, and former Sparta welterweight Eddie Philips, who was one of Englishman Randolph Turpin's main sparring partners when the latter became world middleweight champion in 1951. Equally, leading lightweight Herbie McLean (who once fought British and European welterweight champion Dave ''Boy'' Green in 1976) was strongly supported by Kenny.

Nor did he forget - at the zenith of his eminence as a successful bookmaker and pub empire owner - his local Edinburgh amateur boxing roots.

It was no accident that the Sparta club established a tradition of running boxing shows at the Hibs Supporters club off Easter Road - a tradition which continued until recently.

Between 1992-2011, I was covering almost all the club, international and championship shows held in eastern Scotland and Kenny Waugh was almost omnipresent. And without fail, he would come down to my ringside vantage point to quiz me about the relative merits of some contestant who had impressed him in action inside the ropes.

While it is probable that some of the information I supplied may have been used to underwrite a friendly ringside wager between friends, it was, more often than not, a symptom of Kenny Waugh's devotion to supporting local amateur boxing and boxers as he often received requests to sponsor them.

When boxing in Edinburgh and Scotland went through a moribund phase in the late 1960s and early 1970s it was Kenny Waugh who tried manfully to revive the professional sport in Auld Reekie by setting up the short-lived sporting club based in Edinburgh's five-star North British Hotel (now the Balmoral) at the east end of Princes Street for black tie dinner/boxing shows.

With his death, amateur and pro boxing in Edinburgh and Scotland have lost a tireless advocate and supporter whose personal company and ringside chats with me became something I very much enjoyed.