“You don’t need to dramatise it, you just need to try to find the headline words which will become that part of people’s memories of it.” <\/p>

Where were you during the biggest sporting occasions of your lifetime? Wonderfully, we all have answers to that question.<\/p>\n

The London 2012 Opening Ceremony? I had just scrambled back from an esteemed Keswick chip shop in time to catch it. Extra time during the Euro 2020 final? I was patrolling an East London canal after leaving my jacket and wallet on a Boris bike, watching digits evaporate from my bank account.<\/p>\n

The Lionesses\u2019 Euro 2022 final stretched my patience with train WiFi to the limits, only for the train guard to announce victorious news over the PA system to rapturous cross-carriage applause, while almost every FA Cup final in my second decade was enjoyed, as a neutral, in a floor space-only corner of a friend\u2019s living room, ceremoniously unwinding a neatly swirled liquorice wheel.<\/p>\n

Live sport wields a power like few other forms of media. We absorb it innocuously, those big games, those magic moments unwittingly accumulate in our memory banks. Warm nostalgia is subconsciously sealed away with voice-activated passcodes, a snippet of commentary able to send those memories crashing back into the front of our minds.<\/p>\n

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He also explained the decline of the importance of commentators, why Motson can never be replicated as \u201cthe voice of football\u201d and shared a challenge for his contemporaries \u2013 to uphold standards of the commentary art.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had social media abuse for commentaries on games that I\u2019m not actually at,\u201d Clive explains, an unbothered smile creeping across his face. \u201cAnd I\u2019m supposed to have one of the more recognisable voices in football commentary!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had abuse for commentaries on platforms I\u2019ve never worked for and it just gives you a reality check that the commentator is less important in the consumption of the media today than he or she was 30 or 40 years ago, when John [Motson] was in his heyday, along with these other guys. This voice of football, this voice of rugby, this voice of tennis, these national treasures, we will never have again.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeter O\u2019Sullivan was a national treasure. Dan Maskell, Bill McLaren, Murray Walker, Ted Lowe, Sid Waddell and Henry Longhurst, they were each the voice of their sport in an era when live sport was special, only certain events appeared on that one screen that we all had in our household. The coverage of The Open Championship, when the when the leaders reached the 16th, Peter Alliss would put his goblet down and the others would hand to him. It couldn\u2019t be the completion of the event without that voice.<\/p>
\u201cNow we\u2019ve got multiple screens and blanket coverage of every sporting event. The commentator is less important because he or she commands less of our attention than they used to. Our words are not shared by several generations watching communally.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, despite the continual fragmentation of sports TV broadcasting rights and a deluge of fresh voices across the airwaves, Tyldesley remains well aware of the impact the most critical sporting occasions can have on this island.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cMajor live sporting events are one of the few things that can still fulfil that traditional role of a mass communication broadcast. There\u2019s a phrase in television about \u2018appointment to view\u2019 events. We\u2019ve had a couple in the last few years unlike any that we\u2019ve known before, with the passing of a monarch, who very few of us can remember any time before her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been one or two state occasions and major sporting events such as England playing in a major men\u2019s football tournament final, England playing and winning a major women\u2019s tournament final, not too long ago the Olympic Games in our country.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThese huge events which bring us together are among the very few television products that can really hold the entire nation\u2019s attention \u2013 and live sport in particular because we are now we live in a \u2018spoiler alert!\u2019 world where you still can\u2019t discuss The Sopranos because: \u2018Wait, I\u2019m still watching The Sopranos!\u2019 \u2018Oh, I\u2019m sorry\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cCatch-up is great, it has enhanced our viewing experience, but it has taken some of the immediacy of television away. With live sport, you can\u2019t take that risk. Live sport can still command that sort of national attention which very few other television events can now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the wide reach of major sporting occasions, Tyldesley believes the outbox of social media scrutiny is a dilution of personality within broadcasting.<\/p>\n
The 68-year-old wonders whether colourful characters of yesteryear would have the same freedom to air their unfiltered, authentic selves and believes this lack of freedom may hold back the next raft of commentators in their rise to the top.<\/p>\n
However, he remains steadfast in his belief that older-generation stalwarts of broadcasting still deserve a key role in a 21st-century world so radically different from the one he, and Motson, cut their teeth in.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne post-Motson development is something called Twitter, you may be aware of! That carries a certain amount of jeopardy when the audience is more than a couple of million.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t mind the haters, they hate away, we\u2019re all a matter of opinion, I get that. But the vultures, the people who seem to be circling above anybody who is having their two minutes or 90 minutes of fame, who are actively seeking out reasons to bring that person down. I think that probably dilutes the personality of the broadcast sometimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cTimes change. I\u2019m not saying Peter Alliss, one or two of those guys, a John Arnott, maybe they wouldn\u2019t be suitable or as relevant today as they were in their time but live sport, live music, live broadcasting belongs in its moment. The whole idea of commentary is to try to encapsulate that moment for the audience of that moment. It doesn\u2019t really stand up to review 10, 15, 20 years on because that\u2019s not what it was. It was a live performance at that time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose of us who\u2019ve been lucky enough, like John and I, to broadcast through a period of time, that\u2019s been part of our responsibility to adapt and develop to changing times, changing platforms, changing audience demand requirements.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur kids consume their media in a very different way to the way that we did when we were their age. I am very strongly of the opinion, that this modern trend of believing you need a 30-year-old to broadcast to 30-year-olds is misguided.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as the 60-year-old, or \u2018the David Attenborough\u2019 is open-minded and alert enough to realise that broadcasting has changed and has adapted to the audience of the time, then somebody with the experience of many years of broadcasting, like John Motson can still be relevant to an audience half or a third of their age. That really is the brilliance of Attenborough, the endurance of John Motson.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Susan Tyldesley<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Tyldesley gushes with enthusiasm for his trade. He relishes the artistry, the craftsmanship of commentary, and wrapped up our half-an-hour-long-than-planned chat with an impassioned message to his younger peers, his contemporaries, those who will carry the baton into the next generation, and the next, and the next.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIt\u2019s a piece of journalism, really, a broadcast commentary. I think it\u2019s important to ask yourself before the game what this result will mean at the end and what that result will mean at the end, what the significance of the victory or defeat is for the team, for the manager, for the players involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last 10 minutes, a good commentator is steeling himself or herself for the final whistle and the words that they\u2019ll use to try to sum up the occasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a wonderful mentor, a boxing commentator, the late Reg Gutteridge, who took me under his wing. I didn\u2019t ask him to, he decided he could help me with my career, it was tough love at times \u2013 there were more words of criticism than words of praise! \u2013 but it was love. He taught me a lot of things. One of the things he tried to ingrain in me was the value of the English language and the proper use of the English language.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommentators are richly scorned for crucifying the English language but actually, from time to time, we are working with the same vocabulary as the great writers, the great lyricists, so we should be able to find better words, this was Reg\u2019s message.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should be able to find better words than incredible, wonderful, amazing, when something incredible, wonderful or amazing happens. You should be able to find some words which are specific to the context of that moment. That\u2019s the challenge for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I were to say something critical of a lot of modern commentators, it\u2019s that I don\u2019t think they give enough attention to trying to find the right words, for the right moment. And I think that\u2019s the biggest challenge of what we do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean you have to be a poet. That doesn\u2019t mean you have to adorn the occasion with flowery rhyming language, it doesn\u2019t mean that you have to over-blow the occasion, the sport itself is dramatic.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t need to dramatise it, you just need to try to find the headline words which will become that part of people\u2019s memories of it. My challenge to the contemporary commentators is to try harder to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe job of the sports commentator is\u2026 to connect with people on their level. Reg always used to chide me for commentating to the dressing room. He said: \u201cYou were commentating to the England manager last night, he wasn\u2019t listening, he was in the stadium. Your grandma was listening?\u201d \u201cYes, Reg\u201d \u201cwell commentate to her too because she counts as one viewer too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s that inclusive commentary. John and I have had 20-million audiences to work with and that is a rarity in modern broadcasting. When you\u2019ve got a 20-million audience, you\u2019ve got your grandma, you\u2019ve got the England manager, you\u2019ve got the Prime Minister, you\u2019ve got somebody who\u2019s watching their 100th football match of the year, and you\u2019ve got somebody who is watching their first.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSomehow, you\u2019ve got to come up with a level of commentary which is embracing and welcoming and inclusive for all of them. We talk a lot about inclusivity and diversity, there is the diverse audience when you\u2019ve got the whole bloody country watching!<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the greatest will in the world, we\u2019re not talking so much about race or gender, or even economic circumstances, we\u2019re talking about their level of involvement and interest in your chosen subject: football. How much do they know? How much knowledge can you assume? And how much do you have to help them to enjoy the occasion? And that is the proper challenge of mass communications. And John did that.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody thinks that can be commentator, that\u2019s cool. And actually, there are so many commentators now that, yeah, they\u2019re probably right. But the real challenge is to commentate to the nation, to commentate to 20 million people, because one really big bad mistake may just bring your career down.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the high board. Come up to the top board and look down at the pool from where John stood. That\u2019s the real challenge that he met, and not only passed but passed with so much love and admiration of the way that he did, and the enthusiasm with which he did it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat connection with so many millions of people that he never met who feel as if they would have liked John Motson, if they had met him, all I can say to those people is: that was John, that wasn\u2019t a front.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think you would have liked that guy with all these sort of strange and lovable eccentricities, all I can tell you is: that was John. To connect with so many people and for most of those people to still like you, oh boy, in the 21st century, you\u2019re up there with Attenborough if you can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re looking for something else to watch, check out our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a> or\u00a0 Streaming Guide<\/b><\/a>, or visit our Sport<\/a> hub for all the latest news.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Try Radio Times magazine today and get 12 issues for only \u00a31 with delivery to your home \u2013 subscribe now<\/a>. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n
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