7 minute read
The Special Award: John Motson interview feature
Words by Toby Weidmann Portrait by BAFTA/Hannah Taylor ¥ Photos from Alamy, BBC Photo Library
There aren’t that many people working in television whose voice is perhaps better known than their face. Or whose voice is so distinctive, so synonymous with a sport that a well-known phrase, or even a chuckle, are enough to instantly know who’s speaking. But that’s, ahem, “very much so” the case with BBC football commentator John Motson obe.
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Maybe that’s not such a surprise. Motson, or Motty as he’s affectionately known by just about anyone with a love of football, will reach an incredible landmark at the end of the 2017-2018 season: 50 years commentating for the BBC. He has been the voice of football for generations of fans, who have grown up listening to his voice, both on BBC radio and television, covering everything from league games and FA Cup draws to England internationals and World Cups. (Tennis, racing, boxing and a few other sports were also covered during Motty’s fledgling radio commentary career, too.)
“I think the thing I’m most pleased about,” Motson says, reflecting on his indelible career, “I managed to do 50 years of unbroken service to BBC Sport. I was really chuffed when the BBC gave me my last contract, because it was for two years and not one, which took me up to 50 years. I suppose that longevity, and that I’ve never been off the air during that period, is the thing that gives me the greatest satisfaction.”
It’s interesting to note that Motson actually started out in print journalism, spending four years as a trainee reporter on his local weekly, the Barnet Press, before joining the sports desk on the Morning Telegraph in Sheffield in 1967, where he did a little bit of everything, reporting, writing, subbing, you name it. A major turning point came when Radio Sheffield started shortly thereafter and asked the paper’s sports editor, “a fella called David Jones”, to put a sports programme together. Naturally, he got his “boys from the paper”, Motty among them, to go along and deliver the reports. “It was very much hand-to-mouth, there was no training,” Motson remarks, followed by that trademark breathy chuckle.
Despite a promising career in print, it was clear that broadcast media was where Motson belonged, especially in the commentary box. Motson found his way to the BBC in 1968 via BBC Radio 2, which was then the number one sports channel, before becoming part of the Match of the Day team less than a handful of years later, and he’s been there ever since. Motty’s account of his early radio career is crystal clear – his meticulous pre-match research of facts, statistics and everything else to do with the game in question is renowned (a result perhaps of cutting his teeth as a journalist), but he clearly has a fantastic memory for detail, too – a fact evident in his commentary.
“I joined Radio 2 in 1968 and started off writing scripts as a junior member of the team,” he recalls. “They tried me out reading the racing results and I passed that test, so then they decided I was going to be a voice and I started doing match reporting. I did my first radio commentary in December 1969 – Everton against Derby County in the old First Division, Alan Ball scored the only goal – and then I settled into the radio commentary team. Not, I hasten to add, as a senior commentator; the big names there then were Peter Jones, Bryon Butler and Maurice Eddleston.
“When Kenneth Wolstenholme left the BBC in 1971, they already had David Coleman and Barry Davies on Match of the Day duty, so they brought me in as the third and young commentator, to sweep up the other games to start with... I never envisaged becoming a television football commentator, certainly not as quickly as I did. I mean, I was 26 when I started at Match of the Day.”
Opposite page: A pre-match report from Brighton & Hove’s Amex Stadium (2017); Left: On the gantry at Old Trafford for Man Utd vs Sheffield Utd in his first year on Match of the Day (1971); Below: Motty, wearing his famous sheepskin coat, with Mark Lawrenson for Arsenal v Chelsea at Highbury (2004)
Motson also remembers his first television commentary vividly. “I can remember thinking, ‘What do I say now?’ and being very nervous. It was a league game between Liverpool and Chelsea, which ended 0-0. The real breakthrough for me was my first FA Cup tie in February 1972, when I did the game between Hereford and Newcastle. It was probably the biggest giant killing that had ever happened in English football and still remains so. I was sent down to Hereford to sweep up what they thought would be Newcastle winning one or two-nil. Hereford, who were not even a League club, they were in the Southern League, came back and Ronnie Radford scored that amazing goal, with Ricky George, who was a personal friend of mine, getting the winner in extra time. Lo and behold, it was top of the show that night and I went from being a support commentator to being the lead commentator. Well, at least for that day.”
Longtime viewers of BBC’s football coverage will perhaps associate Motson with the FA Cup the most. He covered his first final in 1977, stepping in for Coleman to commentate on Liverpool vs Manchester United (it finished 2-1 to United, by the way). Incredibly, it was his first live match commentary, but from then on, the FA Cup “became part of my culture”. Since then, he’s covered 29 FA Cup finals, including five replays, 10 World Cups, 10 European Championships and more than 200 England games, not to mention countless domestic league and cup games.
So, what’s made Motty the master of the mic? Research by speech experts in 2001 found that Motson had a perfectly pitched voice for football commentary. Using various factors to judge the top British radio and television football commentators of the time, the study concluded that Motson was the best, with twice the range, speaking at double the speed and able to be twice as loud or soft as the average person, making listening to his voice easiest on the ear.
“It came naturally to me, in the sense that people thought I had a good voice and my bosses in radio channelled that a bit,” noted Motson. “The big change was when I went to television. It was a completely different technique. In radio, you describe everything, from the time on the clock to who’s kicking which way and where they are on the pitch. On television, I had to curtail a lot of that and concentrate on telling people things they didn’t necessarily know.
“A lot is down to diligence and determination,” he continues, thinking about what advice he’d give both his younger self and any wannabe future commentators. “Just because you’ve become a commentator that’s not the end of the story, that’s the beginning. The homework is very important and the background you study beforehand.
Top left: Commentating on the boxing at the Royal Albert Hall with the Greatest, Muhammad Ali, and Alan Parry (1974). The trio saw Santiago Alberto Lovell knocked out by British heavyweight Joe Bugner; Left: At the Amex for Football Focus with pundits Matthew Upson and Danny Murphy and presenter Dan Walker (2017); Opposite page: Motty checks his meticulous notes for Portsmouth v Man Utd (2009)
For television, my advice would be not to over talk. Don’t talk trivia when the ball’s in play, stick to the game and try, if you can, to put some light and shade into your commentary, so that you get excited at the right times.”
He also recommends going to see as much sport as you can, even when not commentating, and try to make as many good contacts at the clubs as possible. “I got to know many of the players and managers personally,” he adds, “and that’s always helped me when covering games.”
On the eve of his retirement from the BBC (not, please note, from commentating) at the end of the 2017- 2018 season, Motson can certainly be considered a master of his craft and a deserving recipient of BAFTA’s Special Award. He has been honoured elsewhere, naturally: he was awarded an OBE in 2001 for services to sports broadcasting and he has three honorary degrees from the Universities of Suffolk, Luton and Hertfordshire among his accolades. His reaction to being presented with one of the British Academy’s highest honours is suitably representative of the affable and self-effacing man we’ve come to know and love over the past 50 years.
“I was never expecting to get it,” Motson says. “When it was announced, everyone has since told me how prestigious it is. I’m really very honoured, flattered and quite taken aback. •
