Match of the Day legend John Motson left family huge inheritance after passing

08 December 2023 , 07:26

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John Motson left his family money in his will (Image: Michael Regan - The FA/The FA via Getty Images)

Legendary football commentator John Motson left his family more than £488,000 when he died earlier this year, it has been claimed.

Motson passed away in February at the age of 77, leaving behind a legacy as one of the sport’s most beloved voices. He made an eight-page will in 2005, giving his estate to wife Anne, his son Frederick and sister-in-law Susan Fielding, The Sun reports. It is not clear how much each will receive.

Fondly known as Motty, he had worked on Match of the Day since 1971 and commentated on almost 2,500 televised games. He covered 10 World Cups, 10 European Championships and 29 FA Cup finals for the BBC before retiring from the organisation in 2018 and going on to work for talkSPORT.

He started out his career as a newspaper reporter at the Barnet Press and at the Sheffield Morning Telegraph before getting behind the microphone. He began working at the BBC in 1968 when he was hired as a sports reporter for Radio 2 and his career really took off when he commentated on Hereford’s shock 2-1 win over Newcastle in the FA Cup in 1972.

Reflecting on that goal, Motson humbly called it a “stroke of luck” which helped kick start his career. “If Ronnie [Radford] hadn’t scored that goal and Hereford had not beaten Newcastle, I don’t think I would be here talking to you now,” Motson said prior to his retirement in 2018.

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“It changed my life, in the sense I was on trial that year at the BBC, I hadn’t got a contract at that stage. I had been in radio, and they kind of borrowed me for a year if you like to see if I made out."

Tributes poured in after his death, with Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker writing: "Deeply saddened to hear that John Motson has died. A quite brilliant commentator and the voice of football in this country for generations. He’ll be very much missed. RIP Motty."

John Motson covered nearly 2,500 games over 50 years (Clive Rose/Getty Images)

Long-time ITV commentator Clive Tyldesley added: "As a teenager I just wanted to be John Motson. Nobody else. Terribly sad." Tyldesley wrote a glowing tribute to his friend for the Mirror.

“When I think of John Motson, I don’t think of the sheepskin coats or the statto image. I think of John as the first broadcast journalist in football commentary,” he wrote. “When you’re recalling the great voices of television in sport in the ‘60s and ‘70s, there were richer voices with richer vocabularies. But John was already moving beyond that style to accuracy in his preparation and identification during commentary.”

Felix Keith