Legendary BBC football commentator John Motson dies aged 77
Legendary football commentator John Motson has died aged 77, his family said in a statement. He worked for the BBC for 50 years and commentated on over 2,500 games on television and radio.
John Motson Sport News
Martin Tyler’s voice and love for the game are a constant between football eras
A t Sky Sports, they still called him “the Voice”. Richard Keys, the long-serving anchorman to Martin Tyler in the commentary box, claimed this weekend this was because Tyler “definitely didn’t have a face for TV” – throwing us back to a now distant, coarser era of broadcasting.
When Clive Allen scored 49 goals in a season for Spurs (but won nothing)
A s Erling Haaland threatens to break every goalscoring record that exists, a few questions hang in the air. Will he beat the 34-goal record in the Premier League, which was set by Andy Cole in 1994 and matched by Alan Shearer a year later? Will he surpass Dixie Dean’s mark of 60 league goals from the 1927-28 season? Is he a robot?
‘He was engaging, warm and genuine’: our readers remember John Motson
John Motson helped kickstart my career in sports journalism. Aged 15, I was the runner-up in a Radio Times competition to write a 200-word match report on the 1983 FA Cup final between Brighton and Manchester United – the famous “And Smith must score” final. My prize was Motty’s signed notes board, which remains one of my proudest possessions. It’s a bit battered now – I was reluctant to frame it as there are notes on both sides – and will always show it to students when I give talks to students. I became one of the UK’s first female sports editors at the age of 19. Teresa Green
Gush of love for Motty chimes with the need for football to venerate its past
V ale, Motty. “Oh, I say.” That was your catchphrase. “Ooooohhrrggh.” That was another one. Probably there were others too. There isn’t any real need for this article to talk about how good or definitive or beloved John Motson was as a football commentator; no need to scroll through the highlights of a 36-year career at the top; or to reconstruct, as a form of eulogy, the age of Motsonism, of comfortable certainties, of danger here and quick feet from the little Mexican, of milk floats and proper breakfasts, not like the ones they have now, of children flying kites next to pylons, of white dog turds (not like the ones they have now), to offer a hymn to an age when the Great Man Theory of football commentary still held true.
UK commentator John Motson dies aged 77
LONDON: British soccer commentator John Motson has died aged 77, his family announced in a statement on Thursday (Feb 23).
Motty’s skill and delivery secured his status at the heart of our national psyche
The loss of John Motson will be felt deeply in commentary boxes and directors’ boxes at football stadiums across the country this weekend.
John Motson was all about the sound of football
“This is George, the substitute, turning well. Mallender. Meadows heading it on. Tremendous spirit in this Hereford side, they’re not giving it up by any means. Radford. Now Tudor’s gone down for Newcastle. Radford again. Oh what a go-oa-l! Wh-aa-at a goal! Radford the scorer! Ronnie Radford! And the crowd, the crowd are invading the pitch, and now it will take some time to clear the field. What a tremendous shot by Radford. He got this ball back, and hit it from well outside the penalty area, and no goalkeeper in the world would have stopped that. It fairly flew into the top corner of McFaul’s net!”
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