Farewell to Motty

The European Championship final between Spain and Germany was John Motson's final commentary for the BBC. Now, some people really can't stand Motty. I have never really had too much of a problem with the guy, except for when he is covering England games and turns into the worst sort of little Englander. It is indisputable that Motson has provided some great moments over the years, so I felt that I would give RTE's coverage a miss this time, and listen to Motty one last time.

Two moments stood out, symptomatic of Motson's attitude to commentary:

1) The first was his repeated insistence that we should not 'write off the Germans.' This mantra has been on the go for as long as I have been following football, and was inspired by a number of high profile penalty defeats suffered by England at the hands of Germany in major tournaments. However, in the past ten years we have seen the German national team demonstrate that they are no longer the mechanical and efficient teams of lore, who won through a combination of force of will and brutal organisation of the talent at their disposal. Their aura of invincibility has disappeared somewhat from the German national teams, for various reasons which I will not go into here.

Yet, here was Motty banging on about 'Teutonic tenacity', and warning us after 50 minutes that 'people have been telling us for years that we should never write off the Germans.' The problem with this is that the person most responsible for perpetuating this myth is one John Motson. With the game as good as dead and only two minutes remaining, he again insisted that we should not 'discount the Germans.'

I'm not sure whether I will miss this predictable national stereotyping or not.

2) Motson has always been at his best, and most stirring, when he simply calls events as they unfold, even if this means eschewing the use of verbs or any adherence to grammatical norms. One moment that always makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck is his commentary on Michel Platini's goal for France against Portugal in the last minute of extra time in the Euro '84 semi-final. 'Tigana. Tigana. Platini. GOAL!' In his intonation and his pared down language which was an obvious result of the gripping turn of events, he managed to convey so much of the emotion and the spontaneity of the moment.

However, when he turns to his notes, or tries to fill time with a statistic, or an 'insight', things can get confusing. Fast. For example, tonight, as Dani Guiza came on for Spain, we had the following exchange.

Motson: Guiza was the top scorer in the Primera Liga with 27 goals for Real Mallorca.

Mark Lawrenson: And not one of them was from a penalty.

Motson: And yet he took and scored his penalty against Italy in the quarter final .... or did he?

Lawrenson: No.

Motson: Perhaps that is why he doesn't take the penalties for his club in Spain.

Moments of confusion like this, especially in the latter years, became part and parcel of the Motson experience. It was precisely because we still had an inkling in the back of our minds that he was capable of great things, such as the Platini commentary, or the Ronnie Radford goal, that moments like this could be accepted, and embraced. Motson was never my favourite commentator, but he usually gave you something to talk about, and brought some level of character and idiosyncrasy to proceedings. So here's to Motty!