Last week saw sport become associated with tragedy yet again, though this time it was in a more positive light following the unspeakably hideous tower block inferno in London which claimed so many victims. 

Even while the 24-floor Grenfell Tower block in Kensington was still smouldering, sport and its personalities were offering both sympathy and practical support.

Tennis star Sir Andy Murray immediately pledged to donate his entire prize money from the pre-Wimbledon Queen's tournament, some £350,000 ($443,000/€397,000) had he won the event.

Unfortunately he suffered a shock first round exit but one would not be surprised if Murray quietly made up the deficit himself.

He is that sort of bloke and someone who is certainly no stranger to tragedy himself, sheltering under a classroom desk as an eight-year-old schoolboy with elder brother Jamie during the 1996 massacre in home-town Dunblane, Scotland, when a deranged gunman shot dead 16 kids and a teacher. 

But it was from boxing, traditionally the most big-hearted of sports, which has a notable connection with the doomed Grenfell Tower, that succour was most prominent.

Housed on its first floor is the Dale Youth Boxing Club, one of boxing's most prolific producers of amateur and professional talent.

Among them are the Olympic middleweight and world super-middleweight champion James DeGale and his long-time bitter rival George Groves, also now a world champion.

Enemies in boxing but both united in being quick off the mark to express their distress.

DeGale tweeted: "Shocked at devastation at Grenfell Tower block where my old amateur club is. My thoughts are with everyone affected."

Groves also tweeted a message as news of the fire broke overnight. "Dale Youth Club has been there for the past 15 years," he said. "I was there Sunday. So sad." 

He also shared a post on Instagram with details of help centres for those affected by the blaze, adding: "If you can help. Lots of people already have".

The Dale Youth Boxing Club was upgraded during the £10 million ($12.6 million/€11.3 million) refurbishment of the block, completed last year.

At the time, the developers said: "The work has provided the club with improved facilities that will hopefully produce many more champions of the future."

Last year Groves was at the official opening of the renovated state of the art £400,000 ($506,000/€454,000) gym which he had joined as a 12-year-old.

The club premises were largely left unscathed by the scandal-hit fire which started on the fourth floor and provided a useful escape route for some who survived.

Coach Mick Delaney said he believed a man who used to clean the gym could not get out of his flat and a parent of a former Dale youth boxer could be among those who are missing.

But much praise has come for the prominent role of another former world boxing champion. The 2004 Olympic silver medallist Amir Khan, who drove the 250 miles from his home in Bolton to offer comfort and aid, hugging survivors as he listened to their stories.

Among them was 23-year-old amateur boxer Paul Menacer, who escaped from a sixth floor flat with only the clothes he was wearing.

"Amir has come down here showing love and affection for people who have lost absolutely everything," he told Sky News. "He is my hero."

Khan also embraced and consoled families of the scores who perished, so many of them fellow Muslims.

"I just wanted to let these people know that they are not alone," he said.

In a week when politicians, especially beleaguered Prime Minister Theresa May, and local council officials were lambasted for not showing sufficient empathy, Khan, as always, was determined to do what he could. 

He even gave his personal number to community leaders and told them: "Call me for anything you need".

This was by no means the boxer's first charitable act. He spent a previous New Year in Pakistan, land of his heritage, to "send a statement" to the Taliban about his revulsion at their massacre of 132 school-kids and several of their teachers in the north-western province of Peshawar.

Khan donated the 24-carat gold thread shorts, worth around £30,000 ($38,000/€34,000), which he wore when producing perhaps the most scintillating performance of his career in defeating American welterweight Devon Alexander in Las Vegas, to help rebuild the army school so mercilessly desecrated by the Taliban. He was personally hands-on in the rebuilding process.

Khan has worked with the charity Horn of Africa to ease suffering in Somalia and on behalf of the NSPCC and Save the Children Fund.

Last summer he returned from his training base in California to help pack up an assortment of clothes, food and vital supplies which he then ferried across Europe to help deliver to Syrian refuges on the Greek island of Lesbos.

Khan has always been the first British Muslim sports personality to openly condemn any act of terrorism committed in the name of Islam.

As I wrote here last year I have never understood why Khan is not better loved or appreciated in Britain where he has been a much undervalued conduit for community relations and racial harmony.

The Khan commitment to Britishness has always been evident from the days his Pakistan-born dad Shah supported him at those Athens Olympics 13-years-ago, wearing a Union Jack waistcoat.

Few British sports personalities have immersed themselves in so many social projects. Khan has been involved in anti-bullying campaigns and keeping youngsters off railway lines, and he also went to Pakistan to help rebuild after the flood disaster.

And he was among the first on the scene in waterlogged Cumbria in 2015 with practical help.

He toured the worst hit areas house-by-house, offering food packs to families left without power, and handing toys to children whose Christmas presents were washed away after the River Eden burst its banks.

Grateful flood victims took to social media to thank him.

One, 25-year-old Nicole Fox, posted a message from her aunt which read: "Took some of our kids who have been made homeless by the flood to meet Amir Khan today.

"He has to be one of the nicest people I have ever met."

Yet he remains unhonoured, not even a measly MBE. What more does he need to do to gain recognition with a gong such as that recently awarded to fellow former boxing champion John Conteh?

Good for John. He deserves it for his own formidable charity work but has he actually done more than Khan, who has also worked so assiduously to foster race relations?

The 30-year-old Khan now finds himself at the crossroads of his career, his only hope of a decent pay-day being a pay-per-view clash with British rival Kell Brook, the former International Boxing Federation (IBF) welterweight champion. Even this is somewhat devalued as both have lost their last fights.

Meantime, an overdue honour for Khan is a gesture boxing, and the Muslim community, would appreciate and especially so in the current climate.

Or, like Conteh, will he have to wait until he is 66?