Weekend: A Few Sherbets, and Farewell Motson

<< Motty attempting to flog a hooky mobile phone to Trevor Brooking (seriously, what other explanation is there for this picture?)

Late on Saturday evening, I learnt the following without the help of the internet, instead resorting to actual conversation:

In America, sherbet is a type of frozen dessert.

Sherbet is a dessert that lies somewhere between ice cream and sorbet, having a lesser milk content than ice cream, but more than sorbet, which clearly doesn't have any. I don't know if there's a British equivalent - to be honest, the idea of removing fatty content from any product isn't one that sits well with us Brits, but then America are hardly trail-blazers in this field. Sherbet is used in the UK to describe a fizzy, powdery sweet substance, found in such messy but delicious treats as the Sherbet Dib-Dab. It also features in one of the Austin Powers films, where the comedic mix-up between what the British spy requests (orange sherbet) and what is delivered (an orange frozen dessert) is really not explored in any way - surely because of running time issues, rather than a failure to realise that sherbet means a totally different thing in the U.K.

A few minutes later, with the clock ticking into Sunday morning, I stumbled upon my earliest fact to date:

Hereford's 1972 FA Cup victory over Newcastle was John Motson's first commentary for BBC TV.

So far, so uninteresting, but this just interested me as it's quite a famous Motson commentary, particularly the moment when Ronnie Radford spanked the ball into the top corner to equalise for Hereford. A lot of people think it was the winning goal, but that was scored in extra-time by Ricky George, who replaced full-back Roger Griffiths, who broke his leg during the game... but carried on playing. Now that's commitment. Another barely interesting fact about this game is that it was a replay, the two sides having drawn 2-2 at St. James' Park a few days previously.

The game was originally designed to slot into Match of the Day in roughly the position that Middlesbrough v Bolton would do now - towards the end, in other words. The shock result catapulted it to the top of the programme, and kick-started Motty's commentary career. Tonight's Euro 2008 final will most likely be his final live commentary, bringing to an end a career that was starting to come adrift slightly, with our John seemingly ever more confused. One of my favourite Motty moments was when Sol Campbell had a goal disallowed against Portugal at Euro 2004 (a correct decision, with hindsight) and as play swept down to the other end, Motson attempted to allude to Campbell's disallowed goal against Argentina in 1998 - he was instead only able to incoherently babble the word "Hollandargie" - the beginning of the end, if you ask me...