He continued to cover games for Match of the Day highlights and appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live as well as commentating on CBeebies' Footy Pups.

As a child, he was a follower of Boston United and recalled the club's victory over Derby County in the FA Cup in 1955.

Culford is a public school where football was generally frowned upon at the time; rugby union, field hockey, and cricket were the main sports for pupils.

[8] In October 1971, he began appearing as a regular commentator with the BBC television programme Match of the Day, his first commentary being a 0–0 draw between Liverpool and Chelsea.

His commentary caused BBC executives to assign him higher-profile TV matches, and he subsequently signed a three-year contract with the broadcaster.

[17] In April 1989, Motson commentated on the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest when the Hillsborough disaster occurred.

[18] The BBC lost the right to broadcast Premier League highlights to ITV in 2001, meaning Match of the Day was no longer a weekly schedule fixture.

[20] In 2001, speech therapist Jane Comins conducted a voice profile analysis to study the patterns of eight top television and radio commentators.

The criteria included pitch, volume, rhythm, and tone, and Comins found that Motson scored the best results.

[21] The BBC lost the rights to cover live FA Cup football in 2008[22] to Setanta Sports and ITV.

Motson attempted to join Setanta, but the BBC refused permission, so he retired from live television commentary.

[16] Motson was a commentator for the FIFA video games series by EA Sports, and worked alongside Ally McCoist, Andy Gray, Des Lynam, Mark Lawrenson and Chris Waddle.

[41][42][43] Motson was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2001 Birthday Honours for services to sports broadcasting.