Motty: Wife’s cancer bravery helped me in my own fight

TEAM Anne & Motty’s OBE in 2001 JOHN Motson hailed his wife’s courage in her breast cancer battle for helping him fight the disease a decade later.

The football commentary legend, who had to pull out of work in 2014 with bowel cancer, revealed Anne had also had the disease, in a documentary to mark his retirement last week.

Motty said: “One way I coped was Annie had breast cancer 10 years earlier. I knew what a shock that was and what courage she showed in the operation.

“I thought to myself, ‘Come on, keep yourself together and don’t make too much fuss.’ She showed just how brave she had been. I was trying to be nearly as brave as she was.”

In Motty: The Man Behind The Sheepskin, on BBC2 today at 9pm, Anne tells of preparing a “black book” of statistics each FA CUP: SEE SPORT season, the basis for his famed match facts. Anne says: “He has done a job which can be exacting so if I can help I’m very willing.”

She also tells of his anguish at covering Hillsborough saying: “It was really, really raw. His belief in football that summer might have deserted him.”