for Liverpool and Nottingham Forest - and the horrors of the Heysel in 1985. He also covered a number of finals of the European Cup Winners Cup and UEFA Cup as well as the Football League Cup final on the rare occasions it was shown on the BBC, and tended to commentate on the draws for the World Cup and European Championship . Despite missing out on commentating on any international tournament final apart from that of 1972 and 1994, Davies would normally be chosen for at least one England match if they qualified. England matches he commentated on include the quarter-finals against Argentina in World Cup 1986 and Cameroon in World Cup 1990 and the semi-final of Euro '96 against Germany. He was also often the BBC's choice of commentator for broadcast to English viewers if Scotland were involved in a World Cup match, such as the opening game of France '98 against Brazil. After 35 years of working with Match of the Day, Davies' final appearance on the programme came on 25 September 2004, commentating on a match between Manchester City and Arsenal. After the match, Arsène Wenger paid tribute to Davies and Kevin Keegan presented Davies with a signed Manchester City shirt. Davies' reason for retiring from football commentary was that he felt he was not getting enough "big" matches, and was being "downgraded", noting in his autobiography that he had not been invited to cover any of England's games at the 2004 European Championship. Indeed, the two-year extension he was being offered on his contract made clear that he would not be covering any "live" football, and there was no guarantee that he would have any involvement at all with the 2006 World Cup. He felt this unacceptable and declined the offer. Before his final commentary game for Match of the Day, Davies said: The BBC's head of football Niall Sloane said: Freelance: 2004–2019 Davies continued to work for the BBC on a freelance basis, covering the 2006 Winter Olympics and Commonwealth Games and in the summers of 2007 and 2008 could be heard commentating on the French Open (when in both years he covered the Men's Singles Final), the Wimbledon Championships before covering the hockey and beach volleyball at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. That same year, he also reprised his role as the voice of the Boat Race by leading the commentary team