He inspired a love of Scottish football for generations of fans as one of the leading commentators and anchor of STV's Scotsport for 32 years.
Before the days of wall to wall live games, Arthur Montford's regular highlights package was the only way fans could get their fix of football on a Sunday.
Many of those viewers last night expressed sadness at the passing of one of football's biggest personalities following his death at home aged 85.
Former Greenock Morton manager and player Allan McGraw became a friend through Mr Montford's love of his home town club which he had also served as a director.
He said: "He was a great commentator, but a fair one too. There were a lot of good press men, but Arthur was one of the best."
The programme's former presenter Jim Delahunt said he was a "legend, gentleman and (I) am proud to have walked in his Scotsport footsteps."
BBC Scotland commentator John Barnes tweeted: "Sad to hear of the death of Arthur Montford at the age of 85. A legend of Scottish broadcasting and lovely man as well."
Although he was most associated with football, Mr Montford covered a golf and a number of other sports for ITV.
He was famous for his trademark checkered pattern sports jackets, and some classic lines of football commentary including "What a stramash" and "disaster for Scotland".
Many fans recalled some of hs classic lines and phrases such as "stramash" were soon trending on Twitter.
Some of the users of the micro-blogging website hailed Mr Montford's "great personality" and said he was "the voice of my childhood".
Others posted videos of their favourite segments of "Montford commentary".
Mr Montford worked as both a print journalist and radio broadcaster before joining Scottish Television in August 1957 as a continuity announcer. He went on to present STV's new sports programme, Scotsport - originally Sports Desk - where he remained the anchorman until his retirement in 1989. In all, he hosted more than 2,000 editions of the programme and became an iconic double act with fellow commentator and friend Archie McPherson.
Comic moments in his commentary career included a technical fault during the 1978 World Cup in Argentina when a problem with the feed from South America prevented ITV from broadcasting Hugh Johns commentary on the Scotland-Peru game.
As a result, Mr Montford's commentary, originally only intended for Scottish viewers, was used on the entire network. Conversely, the same fault affected the BBC in reverse, with Scottish viewers having to listen to David Coleman instead of Archie MacPherson.
Following his retirement, Mr Montford continued to write about football.
In 1996, he began writing a regular column for Scottish golf magazine, Bunkered. His recollections of some of golf's greatest players, moments, and tournaments have proven immensely popular with the magazine's readers and he remains the title's longest-serving regular contributor.
He was awarded the Scottish Professional Footballers Association (SPFA) Special Merit award for his services to football broadcasting and journalism alongside Archie Macpherson.
Mr Montford had been widowed for a second time in April 2013.
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