 Hill (left) with former Fulham team-mateMaurice Cook | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | James William Thomas Hill | ||
| Date of birth | (1928-07-22)22 July 1928 | ||
| Place of birth | Balham, England | ||
| Date of death | 19 December 2015(2015-12-19) (aged 87) | ||
| Place of death | Hurstpierpoint, England | ||
| Position(s) | Inside right | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1949–1952 | Brentford | 83 | (10) |
| 1952–1961 | Fulham | 276 | (41) |
| Total | 359 | (51) | |
| Managerial career | |||
| 1961–1967 | Coventry City | ||
| *Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
James William Thomas Hill,OBE (22 July 1928 – 19 December 2015) was an Englishfootballer and later a television personality. His career included almost every role in the sport, including player,trade union leader, coach, manager, director, chairman, television executive, presenter, pundit, analyst andassistant referee.
He began his playing career atBrentford in 1949 and moved toFulham three years later. As chairman of theProfessional Footballers' Association, he successfully campaigned for the abolition of theFootball League's maximum wage in 1961. After retiring as a player, he took over as manager ofCoventry City, modernising the team's image and guiding them from the Third Division to the First. In 1967, he began a career in football broadcasting, and from 1973 to 1988 was host of theBBC'sMatch of the Day.
Hill was born inBalham, London, the son of William Thomas Hill, a World War I veteran,milkman, and bread delivery worker and Alice Beatrice Hill née Wyatt.[1] He was a pupil atHenry Thornton Grammar School, Clapham (1939–45), and later became President of the Old Boys' Association.[2] He completed hisnational service as a clerk in theRoyal Army Service Corps in which he attained the rank ofCorporal and was considered a potential candidate for officer training.[3]
Hill first came into football as a fan, regularly watching football at local clubCrystal Palace. During his national service, Hill played three trial games forFolkestone Town before suffering a serious cartilage injury. However, he was recommended toReading who he joined as an amateur, playing mainly for their third team before being told they would not offer him a professional contract.[4]In 1949, he joinedBrentford, making 87 appearances before moving toFulham in March 1952, for whom he played nearly 300 games, scoring 52 goals. He set a club record by scoring five goals for Fulham in an away match againstDoncaster Rovers in 1958 and was part of the team that gained promotion to theFirst Division.
In 1957, he became chairman of theProfessional Footballers' Association (PFA) and campaigned to have theFootball League's £20maximum wage scrapped, which he achieved in January 1961,[5] when Fulham teammateJohnny Haynes became the first £100-a-week player.[2]
He was one of many signatories of a letter toThe Times on 17 July 1958 opposing "the policy of apartheid" in international sport and defending "the principle of racial equality which is embodied in the Declaration of the Olympic Games".[6]
In November 1961, after retiring as a player aged 33, Hill became manager ofCoventry City. His time at Coventry was marked by great changes to the club, nicknamed "The Sky Blue Revolution". He changed the home kit's colours to sky blue, coining the nickname "The Sky Blues". Alongside journalist and club directorJohn Camkin, he also penned the club song "The Sky Blue Song", sung to the tune of the "Eton Boating Song".[7] Among his other innovations (many originally dismissed as "gimmicks" but later adopted by other clubs across Britain) were the first fully fledged match programme in English football, chartered trains to away games, regular "pop and crisps" parties where young fans could meet players and get autographs, the first "club call" line, souvenir merchandise made available through the post, and a variety of pre-match entertainment to encourage fans to arrive early. His partnership with the chairman,Derrick Robins, also led to a redevelopment of the stadium,Highfield Road, with two new stands and extensive social facilities being built.[8]
After winning the Third Division title in 1963–64 and the Second Division title in 1966–67, Hill left the club shortly before the start of the 1967–68 season as they entered the First Division for the first time.[7]
After leaving Coventry in 1967, Hill moved into broadcasting, acting as technical adviser to theBBC's football-based drama seriesUnited! before becoming Head of Sport at London's co-ITV region,London Weekend Television, from 1968 to 1972. He also co-hosted their1970 World Cup coverage which, at his suggestion, used the first panel of football pundits.[9]
Along with his role in the abolition of the £20 per week maximum wage for players in English football in 1961, Hill was also instrumental in two other big rule changes in English football. The first of these was in August 1976, when the Football League agreed to Hill's suggestion to replacegoal average withgoal difference, with Hill explaining that goal average over the decades had favoured fewer goals conceded over more goals scored, which he believed should not be the case, with goal difference a way to ensure that more goals scored would be more rewarded over fewer goals conceded. Five years later in August 1981, the Football League agreed to Hill's suggestion of introducing three points for winning a match instead of two, with Hill saying that three points for a win would encourage teams to go for the win more rather than settle for a draw, with a win worth three times what a draw was worth instead of two times what a draw was worth.[10]
He was briefly LWT's Deputy Controller of Programmes, before joining theBBC to presentMatch of the Day. Hill made 600 appearances on the show, and became a television icon, instantly recognisable and often caricatured for his long chin and distinctive beard. As a presenter or analyst, he worked on every major international championship from 1966 to 1998. As a broadcaster with the BBC he was present at theHillsborough disaster in 1989, whilst covering the game forMatch of the Day.[2]
In 1999, Hill moved from the BBC toSky Sports, where he featured onJimmy Hill's Sunday Supplement, a weekly discussion show between Hill and three football journalists.[2] In 2007, he was replaced by his co-presenterBrian Woolnough and the programme was renamedSunday Supplement.[11]
In 2004, Hill defended fellow punditRon Atkinson over racist comments Atkinson had made, believing his microphone was off, which were broadcast live in the Middle East. Hill was asked whether he thought Atkinson should resign for describing aChelsea player as a "lazy, fucking thick nigger", to which he said it was the "language of the football field". Hill went on to say: "In that context, you wouldn't think that words like nigger were particularly insulting: it would be funny. Without meaning to insult any black men, it's us having fun ... I mean, nigger is black – so we have jokes where we call them niggers because they're black. Why should that be any more of an offence than someone calling me chinny?" (Hill, famously, had a prominent chin). Hill's comments were described as "mind-boggling" by the then director ofKick it Out, football's anti-racism group. He went on to say: "Jimmy Hill's comments are as offensive as Ron Atkinson's".[12]
Despite his departure as manager in 1967, Hill returned to Coventry City asmanaging director in April 1975 before becoming the chairman.
When Coventry played their last match atHighfield Road in 2005, Hill received a post-match hero's welcome from the capacity crowd and led them in a rousing chorus of "The Sky Blue Song". In 2007, fans voted for a bar at the newRicoh Arena to be named "Jimmy's" in his honour.
Following a spell as chairman ofCharlton Athletic, Hill made a return to Fulham in 1987 to become chairman, helping his old club survive near-bankruptcy and blocking an attempted merger withQueens Park Rangers.
Hill was atrustee of theStable Lads' Association, and apatron of Labrador Rescue South East and Central.[13]
As chairman, at a crucial relegation match at home toBristol City at the end of the1976–77 season, Hill was advised to delay the kick off by ten minutes for fans still outside caught in the heavy traffic. Relegation rivalsSunderland, playing atEverton, kicked off on time, Sunderland eventually losing the game 2–0. The Sunderland result was announced over the PA at Highfield Road, reportedly at Hill's insistence,[14] and Coventry City and Bristol City played out the last ten minutes of the game apparently without any intent to attack each other's half, thereby ensuring that both avoided relegation. (Coventry's game with Bristol City stood at 2–2, and a goal for either team would have led to the other side being relegated and Sunderland staying up.) A Football League inquiry was held subsequently, but the result stood.[15] Sunderland fans had still not forgotten the incident more than thirty years later; in 2008 they gave Hill a hostile reception when he appeared near the Sunderland end during a match against Fulham.[14]
Hill married three times, having three children by his first wife, Gloria, and two by his second, Heather. Hill published his autobiography,The Jimmy Hill Story, in 1998.[16] He also wroteStriking for Soccer in 1963 andTips from the Top, a football coaching book, in 1970.[17][18] In September 2013 it was revealed that he had been diagnosed withAlzheimer's disease in 2008. His children by his second wife expressed concern that they had no role in determining his care, as Hill had assignedpower of attorney in 2005 to his third wife, Bryony, and a solicitor.[19] Bryony Hill published a memoir in 2015,My Gentleman Jim, detailing her husband's illness.[20]
Hill died on 19 December 2015, aged 87.[21] A celebration of Hill's life took place atCoventry Cathedral on 12 February 2016.[22]
Hill was the president of non-league teamCorinthian Casuals. He lived inHurstpierpoint, West Sussex.[23]
Hill is credited with writing the words to Arsenal's 1971 Top 10 hit "Good Old Arsenal".[24]
Sculptor Nicholas Dimbleby was commissioned to build a statue of Hill at a cost of £100,000. The statue is at Coventry's Ricoh Arena ground and was unveiled by Hill himself on 28 July 2011.[25] The money to build the statue was raised from public donations. Other former Coventry City players from Hill's six-year term as manager were there for the unveiling ceremony, includingBobby Gould,John Sillett andGeorge Curtis, all of whom went on to manage the club during the 1980s.
Hill had a reputation as a moderniser and all-round innovator in football: as well as helping abolish the players' maximum wage, he commissioned the first English all-seater stadium atHighfield Road, lifted a ban on media interviews, introduced the first electronic scoreboard in 1964, the first colour matchday programme and in 1965 Coventry were the first club to show a live match via CCTV on four giant screens.[26] He has been credited with the introduction of thethree points for a win system, pioneered byThe Football Association in 1981.[27] He was also credited with the idea of using a panel of football pundits for the 1970 World Cup.[27]
While long regarded as a cornerstone of televised football in England, Hill was often held in disdain by Scottish football fans, who regularly sang derisory songs about him. Seen by them as being belittling and dismissive about Scottish football, Hill said in 1982 in an interview with the GlasgowEvening Times, "In no way am I anti-Scots, although I know that's how I'm looked on. I think that as a nation you need somebody to hate, and I seem to fit the bill pretty well."
In 1972,Arsenal were hostingLiverpool atHighbury on 16 September, when linesman Dennis Drewitt pulled a muscle and was unable to continue.FA rules state that the match could not be completed without a referee and two linesmen, so the game was in danger of being abandoned. The matchday announcer put a message over the loudspeaker asking if anyone was a qualified referee and would volunteer to run the line. Hill was a qualified referee and had been at Highbury that day as a spectator. He quickly donned a tracksuit before stepping in for the injured Drewitt.[28]
A garden in Hill's honour was opened in 2006 outside Coventry City's arena Ricoh Arena. A new memorial garden twice the size of the old was revealed on 30 April 2016 before the game against Sheffield United.[29]
Coventry City
| Team | From | To | Record | Ref | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| P | W | D | L | Win % | ||||
| Coventry City | 1 November 1961 | 30 September 1967 | 290 | 129 | 83 | 78 | 044.5 | [30] |
| Total | 290 | 129 | 83 | 78 | 044.5 | — | ||
Patrons:The Lord Swinfen, Mrs. Robin Wise, Allen Parton andEndal (Dog of the Millennium), Jimmy Hill and Bryony Hill.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
