Syd Hoare first got interested in sumo when he was in Japan between 1960 and 1964 and went to watch the tournaments and training many times.  This was during the reign of the great Yokozuna Taiho and his rival Yokozuna Kashiwado.  In 1990 Syd  set up a sumo training section in his London Budokan club (formerly the LJS) which attracted a lot of attention.  One of the early sumo trainees there was Nathan Strange who soon went off to Japan to enter a pro-sumo stable. He lasted three bashos (six months) but then pulled out. Syd on hearing that Nathan wanted to pull out flew to Japan and while there got an invitation from the Japan Sumo Federation to come to a meeting of the board.  The upshot of this was that Syd was invited to bring a three man British Team to the next international sumo championships. The team consisting of Steve Pateman, Bill Etherington and Larry Stevens did well by beating two Japanese prefectural teams to start with then losing in the third round.  Bill placed third in the individual championships. Subsequent to this an International Sumo Federation was set up and world sumo championships followed every year. Syd was appointed Vice-president of the Federation and awarded his 5th Dan at sumo. After this period Syd turned the running of the British Sumo Association over to Steve Pateman who later got a bronze medal in the world championships and concentrated on promoting sumo via television.

From 1995 to 2007 Syd worked for Eurosport TV commentating on 72 sumo tournaments and over sixteen thousand individual bouts. Eurosport stopped broadcasting the sumo at the end of 2007. However Sumo is an ancient sport and there is every likelihood that it will be televised again.