Oh dear I thought, as I made my way through the boisterous crowd making their way to the Notting Hill Carnival on Saturday evening, their jovial behavior made me begin to doubt that my decision to travel to the other side of the city, to attend the season opening event at York Hall was actually worth it, but in the end I decided to persevere and to be honest am really glad I did.

I arrived later than planned, expecting to have missed the first bout as it was gone 7pm, only to find that it hadn’t actually started and instead of walking in half way through a bout I was greeted by the sight of a troupe of dancers twirling in the ring.