Although best known for his football commentary, Davies has commentated on numerous other sports, including tennis, badminton, ice hockey, ice skating, gymnastics, field hockey, cycling, beach volleyball, and athletics, and primarily in the BBC's Olympics coverage, where he twice (Sydney 2000, Athens 2004) commentated on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer Games, and he covered both ceremonies for the Olympic Broadcasting Service coverage of the London 2012 games.
Davies was also the 'Voice of the Boat Race' between 1993 and 2004 (until the BBC lost the rights to cover the event), the presenter of Maestro in the 1980s (a series of interviews with retired sporting legends), and the voice that welcomed tourists to London Heathrow in 2012 as they arrived for the Olympic Games.
He says in his autobiography that his original aim was to become a doctor, but although he did well in his school exams, he didn't quite get the grades required to win a university place to read medicine.
When LWT launched in 1968, he was the choice of the Deputy Head of Sport John Bromley to commentate on and present their new football show The Big Match.
Davies joined the BBC in July 1969, making his first brief on-screen appearance as a touchline reporter at the Wales v Rest of the UK International football match held to celebrate the Investiture of the Prince of Wales, but for the next 35 years he was closely associated with the Match of the Day programme, making his debut in unusual circumstances on 9 August 1969.
However, on the day before the broadcast, main commentator and presenter David Coleman lost his voice, succumbing to the same flu illness that had already ruled Kenneth Wolstenholme out of covering that weekend's matches.
Davies, who had stayed in the Queen's Hotel in Leeds on the Friday night, describes in his autobiography how he "barely had time to eat his cornflakes" on the Saturday morning before being put in a fast car and driven to London so he could commentate on the main match, Crystal Palace v Manchester United, and co-present the show with Frank Bough.
The rivalry between Motson and Davies started when the then senior commentator David Coleman was in a contractual dispute with the BBC and was therefore unavailable to cover the 1977 FA Cup Final, the most prestigious domestic game of the season.
Davies was to enjoy most of his leading games in European Cup finals, which were covered by the BBC in alternate years (by agreement with ITV) during the era of English dominance in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
He was also often the BBC's choice of commentator for broadcast to English viewers if Scotland were involved in a World Cup match, such as the opening game of France '98 against Brazil.
[2] Davies' reason for retiring from football commentary was that he felt he was not getting enough "big" matches, and was being "downgraded", noting in his autobiography that he had not been invited to cover any of England's games at the 2004 European Championship.
Indeed, the two-year extension he was being offered on his contract made clear that he would not be covering any "live" football, and there was no guarantee that he would have any involvement at all with the 2006 World Cup.
[3] Before his final commentary game for Match of the Day, Davies said: It is not a fit of pique why I am leaving, but I wanted more than just doing a few minutes' commentating on the roster.
On 23 August 2007, Headline press published his memoirs of 40 years in sports broadcasting, entitled 'Interesting, Very Interesting' after a commentary line from a match between Derby County and Manchester City in 1974.
He revealed on a radio interview with Simon Mayo in 2007 (after he had retired from football commentary) that he also supports non-league side Windsor & Eton, and currently serves as their President.
[11] Davies returned to Match of the Day on 23 August 2014 as a one-off to celebrate the programme's 50th anniversary, and he commentated on the game between Crystal Palace and West Ham.
[13] His last commentary for the BBC's domestic audience was on 15 July 2018 when he covered the Mixed Doubles Final between Jamie Murray and Victoria Azarenka who were beaten by Alexander Peya and Nicole Melichar.
[14] In April 2019, Davies commentated on the Boat Race for the BBC-produced "World Feed" for overseas audiences but the commentary was not heard by viewers in the UK.