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.

That will be done more thoroughly elsewhere, by those who actually knew and worked with Motson. But the response to the death of a public figure is fascinating because it is uncontrolled, finding its own life and speaking to things that stretch into strange and unexpected areas. So it is with the death of Motson, who was 77, who had a fine and happy career behind him and whose death is in no sense a tragedy, just the usual sadness of departures. But who has still drawn what newspapers call “an extraordinary outpouring” of deeply passionate tributes.

In the past couple of days Motson has been described repeatedly as the voice of English football, and beyond that as a kind of bardic gatekeeper, laureate of our most treasured cultural moments. I heard one middle-aged man on the radio, close to tears, describe him as “an angel sent to make this world a better place”.

This must all seem strange to the post-Motson generations, even in a country where the past is always a heavy thing, to be venerated and