A former regional daily sports editor who specialised in coverage of golf and rugby has died aged 91.

Mike Blair, who ran the sports desk of the Birmingham Post when it was a morning daily, died in Sandwell Hospital last month.

Mike, pictured, also served as both the Post’s golf and rugby correspondent and was a member of the Association of Golf Writers for 27 years.

Although he covered Moseley RFC during the club’s glory years in the 60s and 70s, as a proud Welshman his real rugby heroes were the all-conquering Wales and British and Irish Lions teams of that era.

Mike had originally joined the Post as a sub-editor having previously worked on weekly newspapers.

John Wragg, who joined the paper at the same time, said: “Mike’s rugby reporting was simply wonderful, both on a national level and local Midlands level.

“At the Post’s local pub, the Queen’s Head, after a few pints, he would hold court and all you had to do was listen and get a free lesson in the merits and heroes of rugby union.

“He once tried to build a Birmingham Post rugby team. After one not very long training stint he judged what he’d got, abandoned the idea and retired to the Queen’s. One of his many good decisions.”

Former sports desk colleague Tim Taylor said Mike’s death had brought back memories of a “golden age of regional newspaper journalism.”

Paying tribute on the AGW website, Tim said: “What role models we had…guys like Mike, Dai Davies the golf columnist and cricket correspondent J M Solan. All three wrote with knowledge, passion and style, as did the chief football writer, Colin Malam.”

Former AGW chairman John Hopkins said: “To say Mike was Welsh and proud of it is a bit like saying night follows day.

“To hear him late at night with a drink in his hands extolling the merits of Barry John or Phil Bennett or JPR Williams, his great heroes from the Wales and British and Irish Lions teams of the seventies, was to see a man on earth as close to heaven as he could be.

“If he was moved to sing then we were very lucky. He had a wonderful voice, once good enough for him to have sung in the chorus at Covent Garden and if there is one thing that everyone who knew Mike says about him it is that it was a privilege to hear him sing.

“If he hadn’t been so inconsiderate as to die before me I’d have asked him to sing at my funeral.”