In our weekly series, Yahoo Sport’s Nick Metcalfe features a famous voice of sport. This week, the great BBC radio presenter and commentator Peter Jones goes under the spotlight.

For my first five Voices of Sport features - Brian Moore, Richie Benaud, David Vine, Barry Davies and Murray Walker - I’ve focused on people that made their name on television. This week, it’s the turn of radio and the great Peter Jones.

The Welshman will go down as one of the truly special broadcasters in the history of radio sport.

His career actually started due to a chance meeting with Maurice Edelston, the former football star who later worked as a radio broadcaster.

Jones commentated on group matches at the 1966 World Cup in England, and soon became popular with fans. By the time of the 1970 World Cup, he was the main BBC radio commentator alongside Bryon Butler, and worked on the legendary final in Mexico between Brazil and Italy.

He also commentated on every FA Cup final from the 1970 replay between Chelsea and Leeds to the 1989 clash between Everton and Liverpool. For two or three decades, he became one of the sport’s leading voices.

Those lilting Welsh tones accompanied the rhythms of football perfectly, and became the backdrop to the game for millions of fans. These were the days when live televised football was at a premium and radio was king. Midweek matches on Radio Two became a ritual for fans across the country.

Often the action would be joined after 15 minutes or half an hour. “And there’s already been a goal,” Jones would announce, with millions hanging on his every word. Today’s youngsters can see every big match from European competition in midweek, not to mention league matches or domestic cup replays. They clearly enjoy far comprehensive coverage than those growing up in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

But didn’t less really mean more in so many ways in those bygone days? Live football brought into our living rooms and bedrooms through the magic of radio, followed (if we were lucky) by highlights on Sportsnight or Midweek Sports Special. Truly, all our yesterdays.

Jones was also a frequent presenter of the BBC’s live Saturday afternoon sports coverage, originally on Sports Service and then from 1970 on Sport on Two. He presented the BBC’s radio coverage of Wimbledon in the 1970s and 1980s, and worked on a number of Olympic Games, describing the opening and closing ceremonies, and commentating on swimming.

Like many of the top sporting broadcasters, he had such a supreme command of live events that the BBC understandably liked to use him for events of national importance away from sport, like the wedding of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.

As with all the true greats of the broadcasting business, some of his lines resonated through the generations. And the most famous Jones line of all came in the closing stages of the 1983 FA Cup final between Brighton and Manchester United.

The Seagulls, who had been relegated from Division One, were the clear underdogs but they played superbly on the day at Wembley and with a matter of seconds remaining in extra-time, the score was 2-2. Brighton burst forward for one last major attack. And Jones found the perfect words.

“Robinson going forward strong, he’s inside the Manchester United penalty area, he finds Smith, and Smith must score, and he hasn’t scored, and Bailey has saved it.”

Even to this day, fans hark back to that ‘And Smith must score’ line. For Brighton fans, it became an iconic catchphrase, albeit one laced with massive disappointment. A fanzine bore the title ‘And Smith Must Score’.

The great occasions kept coming - memorable cup finals, World Cups, European Championships - and Jones was there for them all. However dramatic the moment, he would find the right words.

When Arsenal went to Liverpool for the final match of the 1988-89 season needing to win by two clear goals to claim the league title, few pundits gave them any hope. But in one of the most dramatic moments in the history of English football, Michael Thomas snatched glory for the Gunners with virtually the last kick of the game. Jones was in the commentary box and his description of the moment was typically lyrical and excellent.

“Out it goes to Lee Dixon, a long ball from Lee Dixon, Smith will hold it up, plays it square to Thomas, and Thomas goes inside Nicol and Thomas is there… and Thomas has scored for Arsenal. In injury time. Michael Thomas has scored for Arsenal. A ball played through the gap, Thomas was there, he held off two challenges, kept his head. By my watch we are a minute and a half into injury time. And Michael Thomas may have won the championship for Arsenal.”

Sadly, Jones didn’t only witness some of the game’s great highs on the pitch, but some of its truly tragic lows too. He was at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels in 1985, when 39 fans were killed after a wall collapsed before the European Cup final between Juventus and Liverpool.

And four years later, Jones was also present on a truly desperate day for the sport, and the country, when 96 Liverpool fans died following a crush on the terraces behind one of the goals at Hillsborough at an FA Cup semi-final between the Merseyside giants and Nottingham Forest.

Jones had no idea of the death toll when he spoke to the nation during Sports Report on that terrible day. He produced what must rank as one of the most moving broadcasts in the history of British radio.

Jones was deeply affected and saddened by the events of that awful Sheffield day. It has been said by colleagues and friends that he never fully recovered from the experience of being there.

He still covered events for the BBC in the year following. Indeed, the picture of Jones with Steve Rider, Des Lynam and Helen Rollason near the top of this feature was to promote the BBC’s coverage of the Commonwealth Games in Auckland, which took place early in 1990.

Soon after that, Jones was working on the Boat Race, on March 31 1990, when he collapsed during his commentary. He was hospitalised after the race and died while there. Jones was 60. Radio lovers had been robbed of one of the medium’s most distinctive voices.

Much has changed in sport and sports commentary in the decades since Jones left us, but there will always be a great affection from many fans of a certain age when they think back to him broadcasting to the nation. Special days really. And Jones was a very special voice.