Arthur Montford

Arthur Montford (25 May 1929 – 26 November 2014) was a Scottish Television sports journalist, best known for his 32-year tenure as the presenter of Scottish Television's Scotsport. Although he was most associated with football, he covered a number of other sports for ITV, notably golf.

Montford was raised in Greenock and was a lifelong supporter of local football club Greenock Morton.

Montford worked as both a print journalist and radio broadcaster before joining Scottish Television in August 1957 as a continuity announcer. He was then chosen to present STV's new sports programme, Scotsport (originally Sports Desk), where he remained as anchorman for 32 years. In all, he hosted over 2,000 editions of the programme. During his time on Scotsport, Montford became famous for his trademark checkered pattern sports jackets, and some classic lines of football commentary, including What a Stramash! and Disaster for Scotland!

During the 1978 FIFA World Cup, a technical fault with the feed from Argentina prevented ITV from broadcasting Hugh Johns' commentary on the Scotland-Peru game, so Montford's commentary, originally only intended for Scottish viewers, was used on the entire network (the same fault affected the BBC in reverse, with Scottish viewers having to listen to David Coleman instead of Archie MacPherson).

Montford's last Scotsport programme was live coverage of the 1989 Scottish Cup Final. After retiring from television, Montford continued to comment on Scottish football, both in the national press and in the matchday programme at Morton. In 1990, he narrated the film documentary Scotland: The World Cup Story. In late 2010, Montford served as an occasional commentator on the Greenock Morton webcast.

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