Jimmy Hill

James William Thomas Hill was an English footballer 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 and assistant referee.

He began his playing career at Brentford in 1949 and moved to Fulham three years later. As chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association, he successfully campaigned for an end to The Football League's maximum wage in 1961. After retiring as a player, he took over as manager of Coventry City, modernizing the team's image and guiding them from the Third to the First Division. In 1967, he began a career in football broadcasting, and from 1973 to 1988 was host of the BBC's Match of the Day.

Hill was born in Balham, London, the son of William Thomas Hill, a World War I veteran, milkman, and bread delivery worker and Alice Beatrice Hill née Wyatt. He was a pupil at Henry Thornton Grammar School, Clapham (1939–45), and later became President of the Old Boys' Association. He did national service as a clerk in the Royal Army Service Corps in which he attained the rank of Corporal and was considered a potential candidate for officer training.

Hill first came into football as a fan, regularly watching football at local club Crystal Palace. During his national service, Hill played three trial games for Folkestone Town before suffering a serious cartilage injury. However, he was recommended to Reading who he joined as an amateur, playing mainly for their 3rd team before being told they would not offer him a professional contract. In 1949, he joined Brentford, making 87 appearances before moving to Fulham in March 1952, for whom he played nearly 300 games, scoring 52 goals. He set up a club record by scoring five goals for Fulham in an away match against Doncaster Rovers in 1958 and was part of the team that gained promotion to the First Division.

In 1957, he became chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) and campaigned to have the Football League's £20 maximum wage scrapped, which he achieved in January 1961, when Fulham teammate Johnny Haynes became the first £100-a-week player.

He was one of many signatories in a letter to The 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'.

In November 1961, after retiring as a player aged 33, Hill became manager of Coventry 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 John Camkin, he also penned the club song "The Sky Blue Song", sung to the tune of the "Eton Boating Song". Among his other innovations were the first fully fledged match programme in English football, and organising 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 being built.

After winning the Division Three championship in 1963–64, and the Division Two title in 1966–67, Hill left the club shortly before the start of the 1967–68 season as they entered the top flight for the first time.

After leaving Coventry in 1967, Hill moved into broadcasting, acting as technical adviser to the BBC's football-based drama series United! before becoming Head of Sport at London's co-ITV region, London Weekend Television, from 1968 to 1972. He also co-hosted their World Cup 1970 coverage which, at his suggestion, used the first panel of football pundits.

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 English Football League agreed to Hill's suggestion to replace goal average with goal difference, with Hill explaining that goal average over the decades had favoured fewer goals conceded over more goals scored, which he believed shouldn't be the case, with goal difference a way to ensure that more goals scored would be more rewarded over fewer goals conceded. And then five years later in August 1981, the English Football League agreed to Hill's suggestion of introducing 3 points for winning a match instead of 2 points for winning a match, with Hill saying that 3 points for a win would encourage teams to go for the win more rather than settle for a draw, with a win worth 3 times what a draw was worth instead of 2 times what a draw was worth.

He was briefly LWT's Deputy Controller of Programmes, before joining the BBC to present Match of the Day. Hill racked up 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 the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, whilst covering the game for Match of the Day.

In 1999, Hill moved from the BBC to Sky Sports, where he featured on Jimmy Hill's Sunday Supplement, a weekly discussion show between Hill and three football journalists. In 2007, he was replaced by his co-presenter Brian Woolnough and the programme was renamed Sunday Supplement.

In 2004, Hill defended fellow pundit Ron 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 a Chelsea 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 of Kick it Out, football's anti-racism group. He went on to say: "Jimmy Hill's comments are as offensive as Ron Atkinson's".

Despite his departure as manager in 1967, Hill returned to Coventry City as managing director in April 1975 before becoming the chairman.

When Coventry played their last match at Highfield 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 new Ricoh Arena to be named "Jimmy's" in his honour.

Following a spell as chairman of Charlton Athletic, Hill made a return to Fulham in 1987 to become chairman, helping his old club survive near-bankruptcy and blocking an attempted merger with Queens Park Rangers.

Hill was a trustee of the Stable Lads' Association, and a patron of Labrador Rescue South East and Central.

As chairman, at a crucial relegation match at home to Bristol City at the end of the 1976–77 season, Hill was advised to delay the kick off by 10 minutes for fans still outside caught in the heavy traffic. Relegation rivals Sunderland, playing at Everton, 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, 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. Sunderland fans had still not forgotten the incident more than 30 years later; in 2008 they gave Hill a hostile reception when he appeared near the Sunderland end during a match against Fulham.

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. He also wrote Striking for Soccer in 1963 and Tips from the Top, a football coaching book, in 1970. In September 2013 it was revealed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2008. His children by his second wife expressed concern that they had no role in determining his care, as Hill had assigned power of attorney in 2005 to his third wife, Bryony, and a solicitor. Bryony Hill published a memoir in 2015, My Gentleman Jim, detailing her husband's illness. Hill died on 19 December 2015, aged 87.