Following persistent rumours on the subject, the British Boxing Board of Control have today withdrawn the boxing licence of up and coming East Midlands Heavyweight Martin “Jonno” Johnson for a period of three weeks because of his persistent moonlighting as a rugby player. The Board have come to this decision in the light of incontrovertible video evidence, showing “Jonno” Johnson to have been in Paris on the weekend of 9th/10th March 2002 playing rugby, although to no great standard.

Johnson has been warned previously that his involvement in rugby will prejudice his development as a boxer and for his own good the Board have had no alternative but to temporarily rescind his licence. The Board have taken into account Jonno’s previous indiscretions, most notably the unlicensed bare knuckle fight last year with Duncan “Hit the man when he’s down” Macrae, another fighter who has successfully masqueraded as a rugby player.

The Board are conducting ongoing investigations into the alleged involvement of the highly rated fighter “Lennox” Lewis Moody with the same rugby club, the so called “Leicester Tigers”.

It is clear that the spotlight will also fall on Dean “Deano” Richards who manages both Jonno and Lennox Lewis Moody. A tight lipped Deano was, mercifully, unavailable for comment but had this to say to the DGs – “Rest assured that we will be appealing [Ed – Deano is never appealing] to the highest authority in the land against the ban – in fact we are seeing Peter Wheeler first thing in the morning”. It will not help Jonno’s case that Deano’s own fight career was tarnished by outbreaks of rugby playing in between fights. Deano narrowly escaped implication in the now notorious “Cardiff Rumble” when the hitherto respected heavyweight Wade “The Blackpool Tower” Dooley and the tidy welterweight Richard “Slugger” Hill were banned after an unlicensed bare knuckle free for all under the guise of a rugby international.

Perhaps the most notorious case of a boxer being seduced by the oval ball game came in the dark days of the early 1970s when Martin “Henry” Cooper, the best loved heavyweight ever produced in these islands, fooled both the rugby and boxing paying public by disguising himself with a “Scouser” curly perm and moustache (an idea he picked up from his advertising connection with Kevin Keegan in order to sell Brut) so as to play outside half for Moseley and England. The extent of his deception was only uncovered by the rugby authorities when they realised just how unutterably crap he was as a fly half [Ed – all England fly halves in the 1970s were crap – how could they tell?]. A couple of years earlier it was rumoured that Henry Cooper and the balding Jacko Page were one and the same but the reality was that no one else in the world – not even our ‘Enery - could pass as badly as the real Jacko Page.