Veteran soccer commentator John Motson has revealed why he took the decision to end his 50-year association with the BBC.
The 72-year-old, a veteran of 10 World Cups and more than 200 England international matches, will call time on an eventful BBC career behind the microphone after a "farewell tour" of 18 Premier League matches this season and an appearance in the television station's FA Cup final programme.
For generations Motson was the voice of soccer for many but he has decided to call it a day before he thinks he is past it.
Speaking on 2FM’s Game On, Motson reflected on a five-decade long career and explained why he thinks the time in right to part ways with the BBC.
"I’ve been to a lot of tournaments and covered England in many, many places and the FA Cup final of course," he said.
"It’s been a great journey really and I’m not too upset about it ending because you have to pick your time and finish somewhere.
"When I thought it was going to be 50 years with the BBC in 2018, that seemed to me to be a good platform to draw a line under it because I didn’t want to carry on to the point where people were saying ‘oh he’s lost it’."
Motson went on to reveal how he got his start in the media and what he feels has changed in the near 50-years he has been commentating on soccer.
"I started off in newspapers and I thought I was going to be a football writer but I was told there fairly early on that maybe I was better suited to the spoken word than the written word and I suppose it went from there really," he said.
"When I start in the early 70s I think there were only three of us doing television commentary – three on BBC and three on ITV.
"Now of course if your were to add up all the TV channels and all the radio stations across the UK and in Ireland, you’d finish up probably with 126 commentators doing football so it’s much harder."
