Ian Harrison

Posted: October 29, 2026

IAN HARRISON, former deputy editor of the Sporting Life Weekender, died on September 25 [2026] aged 80.

He joined the Weekender around 1986/87, and after a few years he went to live in Australia with his wife Carole and their two children. There he joined the Wollongong daily newspaper, the Illawarra Mercury, as racing correspondent/tipster and probably retired around 20 years ago. He continued to go racing at Kembla Grange, his local track where he sometimes clerked for one of the bookmakers, and was a long time member at Randwick. He was also a regular at the Sydney Cricket Ground and had a great passion for cricket and, indeed, history – specialist subject the Romans.

He spoke good Spanish and he and Carole completed several challenging pilgrim walks to Santiago de Compostela, making good friends along the way. Always good company, Ian had a strong love of life which sustained him during a long illness and, while his more recent emails were shorter than in the past, he was still having a punt and remained interested in British racing.