I knew him in the early 90s as the press officer for British athletics, a man who, in those pre-internet days, was always ready to log anxious journalists into whatever new story was breaking, a man who, bless him, would always give you a quote or at least a steer when you felt most exposed and under pressure.

Tony, his voice retaining charming traces of his upbringing in Torquay, was always at ease in front of either a room packed with journalists or a TV camera.

He relished the limelight, and provided a constant link between the sport and the public throughout the 80s and 90s.

Tony spent his life involved in British athletics.

He began as a competitor, a sprinter who was proud to recall that he once raced against McDonald Bailey, the Trinidad-born athlete who won bronze for Britain in the 1952 Olympic 100 metres.

After training at Loughborough College to become a PE teacher, Tony taught in Devon and Essex.

His first administrative post, an unpaid one, came as coaching secretary for Devon.

His first full-time athletics job, in the mid-60s, was as the first paid administrator for the Southern Counties Amateur Athletic Association (SCAAA).

It was during his time at the SCAAA that Ward developed his idea for a national league.

In 1968, he travelled to Poland with the coach Tom McNab to see how their system worked.

A pilot scheme was set up in Britain, which Ward organised, and within a year the National Athletics League (NAL) became a reality, with Ward as its inaugural secretary.

The name would later change to the British Athletics League.

Even before the NAL got off the ground, Ward found himself jobless when the Amateur Athletic Association, which funded his job with the SCAAA, got into financial difficulties.

He took a job with 3M, the company launching the new all-weather "Tartan" tracks, but continued to write articles and books and became ever more familiar to the public as a stadium announcer for major events.

In 1983, international athletics officially became a professional sport and with performers such as Steve Ovett, Seb Coe, Steve Cram and Daley Thompson in their pomp Britain was enjoying huge success.

Ward was initially asked to do the press officer's job for British athletics one day a week, but it soon became a full-time role.

A contributor to many magazines and newspapers, Ward wrote several books, including "Middle Distance Running" (1964), "Athletics for the 70s" (with Denis Watts, 1973) and "Athletics The Golden Decade" (Queen Anne Press, 1991) in which he vividly described the golden era of British athletics through the 80s.

He also ghosted Linford Christie's autobiography.

But soon after performing his role at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Ward (pictrued right with Kriss Akabusi) had his contract cancelled overnight as British athletics found itself on the verge of yet another financial crisis.

It would go into administration in 1997.

Ward, with the assistance of his second wife, Gwenda, a former international high jumper (1.72m and Olympian in 1964) tried to launch an athletics magazine, Inside Track, but it foundered on distribution problems.

However, Inside Track later became a website from which he blogged until his death.

In his later years, he moved to the Lake District, where two of his children had settled, and coached with some success at the Border Harriers club, where his son Tim, a 10.59/21.22 sprinter in 2006, also competed.

If you go to the Inside Track site, you see a blog posted by Tony on February 22 of this year in which he is characteristically direct about what he sees as the "uncertain legacy" of the London 2012 Olympics.

"Why is British sport pussy footing around with the future of the 2012 Olympic stadium?" he writes.

"More pertinently why is all the running being made by Premier League football?

"Why is there, currently, a deafening silence on the issue from the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG)?

"What about the much vaunted athletics legacy?

"Despite recent assurances from the Olympic Minister, Tessa Jowell, that post-Olympic primary use of the stadium will be by athletics that doesn't answer the question of what would happen if the Tories get elected in May?

"It sounds like a typical British cock-up that will surely end in tears."

When Karen Brady, in a new incarnation as vice-chairman of West Ham United, suggested calling the club West Ham Olympic, you knew that inmates were taking over the asylum and that Britain's reputation in the world of international sport could suffer an irretrievable nose dive.

"The noises emanating from British political circles have surely reached ears in Lausanne and Monaco and been loud enough for bitter memories of 2001 being revived and concern to be felt.

"It was the year when, to the disgust of Lamine Diack, President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the Government suddenly pulled the plug on Britain staging the 2005 World Championships at Picketts Lock.

"Diack and Jack Rogge, President of the IOC must be asking themselves, surely it couldn't happen again?

Could it?"

Classic Tony.

And yes – it could and did happen again, as the bid for the 2015 World Championships was suddenly withdrawn by the new coalition Government - a third successive failure to carry through a bid after the 2003 and 2005 events went begging.

Who knows - when Britain bids for the 2017 Championships, perhaps it will make another effort to locate them in Sheffield, as happened, farcically, in the bid for the 2005 event which eventually went to Helsinki.

Tony would have hated this latest shift, and would have loved to write about it.

Very sadly, he is not here to do so.

A statement from UK Athletics chief executive Niels de Vos on the federation's website paid the following tribute: "'This is indeed a sad day for the sport.

"Tony's contribution to athletics in Britain was remarkable, and he will be greatly missed.

"Our thoughts go out to his wife Gwenda and their family and friends."

Ward is survived by Gwenda and Tim; four children, Amanda, Simon, Caroline and Nicola, by his first wife, Kate; and a daughter, Joanna, by his former partner Pauline.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]