HANGING UP HIS HEADPHONES
Legendary commentator Motson is to retire from BBC
SHEEPSKIN JACKETS have been hard to come by for several years now, so it was perhaps inevitable that the BBC’s long-serving football commentator John Motson, famed for wearing them to the commentary box, would have to call it a day soon.
Motson, 72, announced yesterday that he would hang up his headphones at the end of the current season, “before people say, ‘Oh dear me, we’ll have to get rid of him’”.
The veteran of 10 World Cups and more than 200 England matches, has been at the corporation for 50 years and will embark on a valedictory “farewell tour” of 18 Premier League matches this season and a final appearance on the BBC’s FA Cup final programme.
He said: “It might get to me for a short time but I’m hoping to keep my association with football and with broadcasting – I’m not retiring from everything, I’m retiring from the BBC.
“I’m certainly not going pipe and slippers.”
Alongside David Coleman, Kenneth Wolstenholme, ITV’s Brian Moore and his old Match
of the Day rival Barry Davies, Motson takes his place among the commentary elite.
I’ve done six World Cup finals and I’m very proud of that record because I think Wolstenholme only did five of those,” he said.
“The FA Cup as a tournament was very good to me and I’d like to think I can still have some association with that because it was the Ronnie Radford goal for Hereford against Newcastle which really put me on the map in 1972.
“All that has been bubbling in my mind and I’ve been thinking, ‘Why not leave on a high note’.”