Why we’ll miss ‘Motty’

There’s a sheepskin coat hanging just inside the Pearly Gates. Yes, John Motson has died. That appears to be the case, Des. Very much so, in fact. Of that. There can be. No doubt.

It’s normal, when a beloved commentator of Motty’s vintage dies, for viewers of a certain age to mist over and fondly recall the days when there was humour in sports broadcasting, when those behind the mike – and indeed in front of the camera (David Vine, David Coleman, the recently-departed Dickie Davies) – had a smile on the lips and a glint in the eye. ‘Not like the over-earnest, stat-obsessed presenter-bots of today,’ etcetera. But actually Motty was different. He was over-earnest. He was stat-obsessed. He was, in short, a nerd. And that’s why we loved him.

Back in the studio, Des Lynam would give it the urbanity, the raffishness, the sense that, underneath all the hype, football was only a game, and it didn’t really matter.