Vale, 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 fetishised and used as a stick with which to beat the present. The clips don’t seem to add up. Was Motson a genius with words, with a voice like molten nougat? Not really.
Barry Davies had better lines, delivered with the on-air persona of a deeply sceptical carved wooden woodpecker discoursing on infinite human folly via the medium of a violent 1-1 mid-table draw. Motson’s lines were clunky by contrast.
The Crazy Gang Have Beaten The Culture Club bit from the 1988 FA Cup final has become his Sgt Pepper, his Ulysses, his You Can’t Touch This. But it never really made sense. What is playfully gender-fluid cod reggae doing in here? What did he think a culture club was? In which corner of the Motson mind did he find this thing? (Mmm, clubs, culture! A geisha-ish mystique! The rugged defensive stylings of Andy Thorn! There’s something here John, just go, press the throttle, nail the moment).
But this was never Motson’s thing. His gift was more visceral, a combination of sounds and phrasing that was musical in its own way, and which captured its time and place.
There is still a distinct pitch and timbre at older English football grounds; the sound of massed voices bouncing off a corrugated roof, a collective human static contained within those large, clanky metal spaces. Motson’s voice has the same quality, a nasal resonance that is somehow entirely of its place, like certain kinds of historical guitar sounds that have become authentically unrepeatable: Motson as the Kinks’s ripped-up amp, George Martin’s mixing desk, the crackle of heavy vinyl.
The scripted lines were so-so Motson. But “Arconada … ARMSTRONG!!” is brilliant. As was the unquenchable World Cup excitement about the thrilling Brazil of 1978-1986, from “little chip …” through the simple shouted names (“Falcão!” “Careca!” Josi-MAR!” and (panicked) “Paolo Rossi again!”) right up to the raw, defining weirdness of “Sócrates scores a goal that sums up the philosophy of Brazilian football”.
Tone, feeling, connection: it is an underrated but vital broadcasting quality. Motson had it, that feeling of being at all times in character, gripped at every waking moment by something Glenn Hoddle is doing, ready to be wheeled out of his broom cupboard to go.
Does this explain the outpouring? Probably not. But then great public sadness is always about something else really. His death is a kind of bookend for anyone who had a football-facing English childhood in the 1970s through to the early 90s, experiencing that part of public life through those luminously mundane gobbets that stick in the memory.
Yes you can already feel a rolling of eyes at this kind of stuff, which sounds like another example of the great British preoccupation with the past, another symptom of a country in decline and hostile to change, a kind of Motson-as-Brexit dynamic.
That monovision experience was destroyed by deregulation, Sky’s tanks rolling through the Berlin Wall. Frankly, we have a much better, more diverse, more fluent and nuanced TV product in its place.
But nostalgia can be useful. It is born out of the urge to preserve, and football is clearly in a state of violent change. Nobody knows what parts will be left. Perhaps this is why the passing of Motty feels extra poignant. The age of Big Commentary also coincided with things that are valued for good reason, the importance of connection and shared physical experience, of a narrative that stretches beyond a few big corporate entities selling content.
As of this week football has made its first moves to erect some kind of protective measures, the act of regulation that is an unexpected consequence of the Super League furore, and is already being attacked by the kind of free-market zealots who tend to run things.
It is tactically necessary for football to venerate its past. The deep, vital gush of love for a departed commentator seems to chime with this, by accident or design. The outline of that overcoated figure may be fading into the blizzard. But the dead have a kind of authority on these matters; and there is a value in remembering those tones and textures, in treasuring a little, the age of Motsonism.
