Spreading the gospel of a sporting love

Hunched and smiling, `Motty' ambles through the door into the Bear Pit. The sheepskin has been discarded. Trinity's GMB, where presidents, international peace-keepers, Nobel prize winners, reformed terrorists, drunken actors and communists have hung out their philosophies, prejudices, theories. Dean Swift. Sam Beckett. `Motty'.

Undergraduate-sized rectangles of faded paint mark the walls where oils of long dead Trinity graduates have been replaced with No Smoking signs. John Motson, BBC football commentator, feebly holds up his glass of white wine like it's the League Cup, blazing a trail to his wooden chair at one end of the long table.

Behind him a thrusting Oasis like mob follow, cans of beer in the air FA Cup style. Low fringes. Probably the Committee. A chant begins from the back. "Motty . . . Motty . . . Motty . . ."

Motty stands up with lines from a previous speech still ringing in his ears. A student committee member has just put football into a social context. "Football is a social salve or conversational piece when things like girls or emotion come into a conversation." Now it's Motty's turn. "I was going to do this paper for 15 minutes but it would take me about two and a half minutes," he says honestly. "So we'll go to a question and answer."

Best team? Best manager? Best player? Best British player? Motson sidelines the structure and formality with a breathtaking swish of his Chardonnay. No one minds. Everybody is a fan, a soccer junkie. Anoraks, train spotters, football encyclopaedias.

Match up with `Motty' and win 12 cans of Dutch Gold beer.

We have moved on 24 hours and Murray Walker has kept the crowd of 500 ticking over in UCD's L Theatre, decked out with brand names like any decent F1 paddock. The chairman thanks the multinational sponsor and invites people to believe that tyre sales have soared since getting involved with the college F1 Society.

"Yeh, their rubbers," comes the reply.

Most in the hall are fans. Petrol heads. Say V8 to them and they'll say `beautiful engineering'. Eddie Irvine, they'll argue, cornered the market in global ladism. Like Motson in the GMB, they have come to listen, hopeful Murray will take them a little closer to the mysteries of the world's fastest growing sport.

Within five minutes the crowd's telemetry is humming.

"I went from tanks to bikes, from bikes to advertising," he says. "You know, Bounty gives you tender coconuts."

This year Walker sat down with his bosses at ITV and told them of his paranoia of going on too long. He had watched his pal Damon Hill unravel last season because he couldn't let go. ITV said take another year and the young 77-year-old jumped.

Laced with old fashioned niceties, Walker is a story teller, a peddler of anecdotes. Middle England down to his club tie and cute anachronisms. He once nearly landed a "fourpenny one" on James Hunt.

"I became very fond of James but I couldn't stand him when he arrived," he says as part of a canter through all the great ages of F1. "James always sat in a sullen soporific state. He was an eccentric. He lived a very, very high life indeed. I reacted to his appointment as BBC co-commenter with alarm, disappointment and despondency. I regarded him as a drunken Hurra Henry because that's what he was.

"I recall when he arrived at the commentating position for his first Monaco Grand Prix. He was staying on a yacht. The rest of us were in hotels. I remember turning around and seeing this person in cut off denim jeans, a crumpled T-shirt and his left leg in plaster from his ankle to the top of his thigh. In his left hand he had a half empty bottle of Rose wine. He sat down, lifted his plastered leg and placed it across my lap.

"By the end he had lost everything, a Nite Club in Marbella, a sports club in Hamburg, a farm near Silverstone and a lot of money with Lloyds. He couldn't even afford to run a car. In 1993 we were doing the Canadian Grand Prix from London. James cycled from Wimbledon to the TV centre. After the race he cycled back again. The next day he died."

Motty is churning out the facts, the antidotes, filling the sails of the soccer voyagers with his nasal Hertfordshire accent.

"Yesh. I miss Lynam as a personal friend but as a broadcaster no. Lineker (Gary) is doing a fine job. Any more questions? You, you with the blue hair . . ."

The debate which became a Q and A has become Motty commentating on his own vast sea of knowledge. It is soccer mania. Regurgitation on an industrial level and no one showing any sign of becoming bloated. The World Club Championship in Rio? A waste of £6 million. The FA Cup? In deep trouble. The crowds are dropping. Next England manager? Peter Reid. Worthington Cup? Scrap it. Biggest question facing football? Video evidence. Virginia Wade as a commentator? Next question please. Eric Cantona's signature? The biggest moment in the history of Manchester United and Man U's player of the century by a mile. "And that's official," he says.

"Sky and ITV have both offered jobs to me," he says. "But the BBC put themselves out for me. When Lynam left they moved quickly to secure Hansen (Alan), myself, Lawrenson (Mark) and Lineker."

A voice, sounding very much first year arts, shrieks "Do you think you could beat Lynam in a fight?"

"Well, I don't want to get into that," says Motty. A booming voice bellows back.

"You couldn't beat Eamon Dunphy."

Where Motson is fact friendly and more in the mould of `name four Irish players who captained sides that won the FA Cup', Walker tells us with unrestrained admiration that his mother died last year aged 101. One of the last things she told him to do was to get his hair cut. He went out and cut his hair.

"One of the main things that ITV predicted and the BBC couldn't see was how big F1 was going to become," he says. "It cost ITV Stg £70 million to get it. To get their money back they had to get 30 per cent of the audience. They never fail to get less than 44 per cent. Advertisers are queuing up," says Walker before leaving to a standing ovation.

Motty has been handed a 12-pack of Dutch Gold beer to pass down to the guy with the quickest mouth.

"Carey, Cantwell, Whelan and Keane," says Motty. "The FA Cup winning captains. Nice one."