There will never be another to match Motty

Alan Tyers says the commentator will be sorely missed by his legion of fans as he hangs up his sheepskin coat

Aside from meticulous preparation, he brought with him wild enthusiasm

It was a day for farewells; 170 miles south of Arsene Wenger’s Huddersfield hurrah, another legend of English football was hanging up his sheepskin coat.

From Selhurst Park, John Motson went to the Royal Festival Hall for a richly deserved Bafta, before his Crystal Palace report aired on Match of the Day.

Gary Lineker rightly called him the “voice of football”. Soon the voice was yelling “Milivojevic!” in that trademark yelp, like a Shih Tzu whose tail had been trodden on while it was engrossed in a Rothmans Football Yearbook.

He had accepted his Special Award Bafta with typical modesty, downplaying his long career with its 29 FA Cup Finals and six World Cups. “The commentator is only the voice at the end of a very professional and sometimes complicated process,” Motson said. “So I’m dedicating this to the BBC sports department where I’ve worked for 50 years and been so grateful to have so much professional support behind me.”

Like Wenger, Motson embodied values that have an old-fashioned feel these days. He took his duties seriously, he emanated a sense of pride in his position rather than entitlement to it. He prepared fastidiously, using the old ways of visiting places to check them out, of meeting people, and writing things down with a pen, rather than insta-snapfacing them or forming opinions third hand.

He was committed, hard-working and decent. As with Wenger, some felt he stayed on a little too long.

But let us enjoy him for what he brought. In today’s sporting landscape, where fans study football tactics with the gimlet eye of forensic investigators, where supporters debate about Long career: John Motson, with his endless stats, was a pioneer for the football nerd “expected goals”, where some sad cases even choose to argue about which team has a higher net transfer spend, being a football nerd has become the norm.

Motson was a pioneer in this, with his reams of stats, his quirky sort-ofinteresting titbits, his refusal ever to be knowingly underboffined about the Peruvian left-back’s breakfast of choice.

Emerging as he did in the 1970s, where proper football men were proper football men and owning a calculator or a notepad was invitation to get duffed up around the back of the changing rooms, Motty was a rare creature indeed.

Aside from meticulous preparation, he also brought wild enthusiasm. Motson never saw a piledriver he didn’t absolutely love, never watched a match (or so it sounded) that he couldn’t wait to tell us about.

He gave the sense he felt he was been lucky to have the job. It wasn’t luck, of course: he was a fantastic broadcaster. The men and women who follow in his footsteps speak without fail of his passion, his generosity with his time and his insights into their profession.

This weekend, for instance, Jake Humphrey noted how Motson took him under his wing and gave him advice about balancing life and work.

Motty belonged to an era where even famous people were allowed to be private. You never hear a bad word about him. In an age where any error is pounced on by the internet and where the slightest misjudgment of taste or tone can see the mob demand someone’s head on a plate, you wonder if ever again a football commentator will last as long as Motty did.

Certainly football viewers will never have as singular and passionate a companion. We will miss him – very much so.

‘Motty Night’, a night of programming dedicated to John Motson, airs on Saturday on BBC2.