Sheffield has been paying tribute to the late John Motson after the former BBC commentator’s sad passing at the age of 77.
The iconic commentator began his football career in the Steel City, working for the Sheffield Morning Telegraph in 1967 and 1968.
Motson became a famous voice of BBC’s Match of the Day, taking his place behind the mic for fixtures between 1971 until 2018.
BBC Radio Sheffield commentator Rob Staton saw Motson as an icon in the profession who the industry has struggled to replace.
He said: “A lot of modern commentators will try and talk too much about a situation, we can all see what’s happened, it just needs that emotive sentence to sum up a moment perfectly.
“He inspired everybody that wanted to be a journalist and every person who wanted to be a commentator, when I grew up, if you said to anybody that you wanted to be a football commentator, they would ask if you wanted to be the next John Motson.”
It was his commentary of Ronnie Radford’s strike with Hereford to knock Newcastle out of the FA Cup the following year which made him famous, soon becoming the face of Match of the Day.
Perhaps the most memorable moment for Sheffield United fans choosing to remember ‘Motty’ was the commentary on Tony Currie’s goal to put the Blades 3-2 in front against West Ham.
“A quality goal by a quality player” Motson dubbed it, as Currie shimmied and shot after picking the ball up from just inside The Hammers’ half.
Sheffield Wednesday fans were also familiar with the Salford born commentator.
In 2020 The Owls released a documentary of their history with Match of the Day, narrated by none other than Motson.
Mr Staton said despite his much adored coverage of Sheffield clubs, the peak of his career came in Euro 96.
He said: “My favourite Motson moment was when Paul Gascoigne flicked the ball over the head of Collin Hendry and then hammered it in.
“He managed to put into a few words what everyone in the country was thinking when he said ‘oh brilliant, oh yes!’ because that’s what everyone will have been thinking in their heads whilst that was going on.”
In a tougher moment of his career, Motson was also in the gantry for the Hillsborough disaster which saw 97 Liverpool fans lose their lives in 1989.
Always sporting his sheepskin coat, he became a household name for everyone across the country, but his famous takes on crucial moments in Sheffield’s sporting history will always make him a hero in the city.