If you want to know the
effect Jimmy Hill had on English football, try writing its history over the
past fifty years and leave him out.
Much of what we now call
‘the product’ of football can be traced back to him. You could argue he has had more of an effect,
made more changes and enhancements than any other individual in world football.
With football being awash
with money these days I am often critical of players who move straight into the
media after they finish playing rather than putting something back into the
game by moving into coaching or management.
Well Jimmy did both. In every
sense of the word he was a pioneer.
Here’s just a list of
some of his achievements
- · Negotiated abolition of the maximum wage, leading to footballers being paid what they’re worth.
- · Changed Coventry City’s colours to create the brand, Sky Blues.
- · Introduced first all-seater stadium at Coventry’s Highfield Road.
- · Pressed The FA to increase the prize for a win from two points to three. An initiative then adopted throughout the world.
- · Campaigned for the abolition of the back pass.
- · Introduced the concept of a panel of pundits for TV World Cup coverage.
- · Was driving force behind Match of the Day, turning it into an institution.
Born in Balham, South
London on 22nd July 1928, his football career began at Brentford
where he played under future England manager, Ron Greenwood, before moving to
Fulham in 1952. He played an influential
part in the club’s journey to the FA Cup Semi-Final in 1958 when he scored in every
round. He once scored five goals in a
game at Doncaster, in 1958.
In 1957 he became
chairman of the PFA and led a campaign to force clubs to abolish the maximum
weekly wage
Maximum Wage
Ever since the turn of
the twentieth century the Football League set a maximum amount by which players
could be paid. This contributed in clubs
being able to treat players exactly as they wanted. They could determine exactly how much they
wanted to pay them and were also in complete control over whether the player
stayed at the club or not. In short,
players were treated in a way synonymous with slavery. Jimmy Hill believed this was wrong, but the
clubs were so powerful they didn’t take him seriously to begin with. Not until he threatened a strike. This was unheard of in football.
There were those who
believed it would be the end of footballers in touch with the public. It divided the nation. But Jimmy was adamant players deserved to be
paid their worth and some players were making the clubs a lot of money and
should be appropriately rewarded. He
also believed they should be free to negotiate their own contracts, much like
other professions.
The clubs, and some of
the managers, were against the idea but gradually the players voted for
industrial action and eventually they got their way. Many pointed to Jimmy’s influence and
determination in being a key factor. The
much predicted wage spiral didn’t happen immediately, although Fulham’s
Chairman, Tommy Trinder, hit upon the publicity value in handing his star
player, Johnny Haynes a £100-per-week contract.
But it wasn’t until players such as Jimmy Greaves and Dennis Law moved
abroad that clubs realised they’d have to concede to pressure and increase the
amount they were paying players.
By the end of the 1960’s
George Best was earning £1,000-per-week at Manchester United. When the Premier League was launched the
highest paid player was John Barnes who was paid £100,000-per-week, but since
then wages have exploded beyond all proportion.
In the week Jimmy died
there is something remarkably ironic in players of a club seeming to refuse to
play for a manager so the club has little choice to sack him and find a
replacement.
In later years Jimmy felt
the growth in players’ wages had gone too far.
But then that’s a matter for clubs today rather than something he needed
to worry about at the time. What is
plainly obvious is clubs were pocketing all the gate receipts for themselves
without rewarding the players for attracting huge crowds. The players were paid £20-per-week when the
average wage in the country was £18-per-week.
You can hardly blame the players for believing the clubs considered them
nothing more than bit parts in the performance in the same way they did the audience. The fans weren’t flocking to football grounds
for the buildings themselves, they were there to witness the performance of the
players and the clubs needed to understand that.
Back on the pitch he
became an instrumental part of the Fulham side which won promotion back to the
First Division in 1959 after an absence of seven years. Unfortunately, he was only able to enjoy
another couple of seasons as a player and at the age of 32 he had to retire due
to a long-term knee injury. He’d played
276 games in nine seasons at Craven Cottage.
He published his first
book called “Striking for Soccer” and in it he revealed many suggestions he had
for revolutionising the game, which today have become and part and part of
football, but back then were seen as something from another planet.
He advocated the
introduction of a super league, a winter break and regular midweek evening
games played under floodlights. He also
saw television playing more of a role in broadening the popularity of the
game. He argued one game each weekend should
be played live in front of cameras, perhaps on a Friday night.
Coventry City
In 1961 he took up the
manager’s job at Coventry City, who were languishing in Division Three (League
One, today). They had spent time in
Division Two either side of the war but then they fell back and even spent a
season in Division Four in 1958.
Backed by his chairman,
Derrick Robbins, he set about implementing many of his other ideas such as
providing better facilities and more entertainment for supporters. He was the first man in football to really
consider the spectators as customers of the club and therefore he set about
improving the match day experience, something every club does these days. He introduced the first electronic
scoreboard, launched the first glossy match magazine, brought in the first pre-match
entertainment any ground had seen in England, and provided free soft drinks and
snacks for children. He continued the
change of image for the club by launching what was known as, the “Sky Blue
Revolution”. He changed their home kit
from navy and white back to colours they used to use fifty or so years before,
sky blue. He gave them their nickname
and a club song, as well as organising the club’s own rail service for fans to
get to away games.
For the players he lifted
a ten year club ban on them talking to the press and demanded they call him
“JH” rather than sir, boss or gaffer. He
did not sign anybody above the age of 25 and brought in a more analytical
approach to training.
In 1965 he set up the
first ‘beam-back’ broadcast when City’s midweek game at Cardiff City was
watched by over 10,000 supporters back at Highfield Road.
It wasn’t long before
improvements were seen on the pitch too, and in 1964 they won the Division
Three title and then three years later, won Division Two to move into English
football’s top division for the first time in their history. Their first two seasons were tough as they
narrowly avoided relegation by a point each time but in 1970 they finished
sixth, their best ever top flight finish.
But by this time Jimmy had stepped down as manager to take up a role at
London Weekend Television as head of sport.
Television
He didn’t wait long
before making changes there too. These
were pioneering days for football on television and the 1970 World Cup in
Mexico was going to be the first one where football showed a whole host of live
games. In preparation, Jimmy hit upon
the idea of a panel of pundits to debate what they were about to watch and then
chew the fat over what they had just seen.
Ever the visionary, Jimmy soon understood the effect having some big
personalities and egos in the studio together, would have on the viewing
experience for those at home. The
arguments between Derek Dougan, Malcolm Allison, Paddy Crerand and Bob McNab
became compulsory viewing and the format has been retained ever since.
Jimmy was one of those
visionaries who could see the impact television was likely to have on the game
and this was where he concentrated his energy.
In 1972 he moved back to the BBC to present Match of the Day. The programme had begun in 1964 but spent
much of the sixties convincing the clubs it was not going to steal their
audience. Jimmy again brought his
creative juices to the concept and encouraged slow-motion replays, using them
as a way of showing goals as well as illustrating certain key moments in a game
which may garner discussion for the watching public. Jimmy would often criticise refereeing
decisions and was able to use television to prove his theories.
In a time when live
broadcasts of matches were still confined to the FA Cup Final, England v
Scotland and the odd international match, Jimmy was one of the first to be used
as a summariser during a match. But not
in a way where people today talk almost as much as the commentator, but during
the cup final he would be asked his views on how the game was going about every
fifteen minutes.
The 1983-84 season saw
the advent of another of Jimmy’s ideas when Match of the Day showed a live
league match on the BBC for the first time.
It was two months after ITV had shown theirs but still Manchester United
v Tottenham on 16th December 1983 was historic at any rate.
During his broadcasting
career, Jimmy returned to Coventry as managing director and eventually becoming
chairman. In 1981 Jimmy’s proposal to
convert Highfield Road to an all-seater stadium was realised. It was the first ground in England to move to
all-seater and given what was suggested by the Taylor report in 1989, it was
another example of Jimmy being ahead of his time.
Unfortunately, the
all-seater project was abandoned two years later when standing room was
re-instated. What hadn’t helped the plan
was Leeds fans ripping out several hundred seats just months after they’d been
put in.
When Highfield Road
closed its doors for the last time in 2005, Jimmy received a hero’s welcome
from the crowd and fans voted for a bar at the new ground, Ricoh Arena, to be
named “Jimmy’s” in his honour.
Other Notable
Achievements
Unlike today where Match
of the Day pundits watch all live matches at the same time from a control room
at the studios, when Jimmy was preparing for the programme he had to be at a
ground to be able to summarise it that evening.
Often he would get a private plane to fly him back to the studio. During one match at Highbury in September
1972, the linesman pulled a muscle and couldn’t continue. As the match couldn’t be continued without a
qualified official there was an appeal over the tannoy to see if anyone in the
crowd could help. Step forward Mr Hill,
who confirmed himself to be a qualified referee and so he donned a sky blue
tracksuit and ran the line.
At the beginning of the
1980’s there were discussions around how to improve football and raise the
attendances at league grounds. One of
Jimmy’s ideas was the change the points awarded for a win from two to
three. He argued many matches can end up
turgid, dour affairs with neither side wanting to make a mistake and risk
losing the point they were on course for.
Jimmy’s suggestion promised to offer a greater prize for the side
willing to give it everything right up to the final whistle, turning one point
into three. In 1981 the FA formerly
adopted the new system for league matches.
Few major nations followed, until Italy brought it in, in 1993 and then
UEFA used it for the Euro ’96 qualifying campaign. Nowadays it is used globally around all
leagues.
When Coventry City won the FA Cup, their only major
honour ever, joint managers George Curtis and John Still were keen to point out
the excellent ground work Jimmy put in which they believed had gone a long way
to contributing to the club’s success.
Having never ever been in Division One until promotion in 1967 under
Jimmy’s management, Coventry then spent thirty-four seasons in England’s top
division. By the time they eventually
succumbed to relegation, in 2001, only Arsenal, Everton and Liverpool had spent
a longer unbroken spell there.
He returned to Fulham as
chairman in 1987 where he staved off the threat of bankruptcy and a merger with
Queen’s Park Rangers before setting the club up for a more successful period
under new owner, Mohamed Al Fayed.
He was awarded the OBE
for services to football in 1994. In 1999
Jimmy moved from the BBC to Sky Sports and fronted a new programme, Jimmy Hill’s
Sunday Supplement, a weekly discussion between Jimmy and three football
journalists conducted over breakfast. He
chaired the programme for six seasons before his co-presenter, Brian Woolnough
took over and Jimmy was no longer a regular on our screens.
Some may have viewed
Jimmy by then as a man of the past, a dinosaur, stuck in the past. In fact, during his broadcasting career he
was continually criticised for his outspoken views. Yet this is what attracted the viewers and after
all what is the point of a television programme if you cannot get anyone to
watch it?
Above all, Jimmy was
ridiculed for his chin which protruded somewhat. In fact when I was at school there was a
fashion to rub your chin when you were being told something you didn’t quite
believe, saying ‘Jimmy’ in a rather sarcastic voice just to confirm the
disbelief.
Des Lynam recalled, “we
were at a ground and all 30,000 people started chanting at him, but not quite
in his favour. I asked him how he put up
with it and he simply said ‘that’s fame for you’. He was not going to be beaten by a chanting
crowd”.
For a man who achieved so
much in football it must have appeared odd why he would be subject to such
ridicule but Jimmy clearly loved the game and seem to revel in any debate about
it.
Shortly after his final
appearance for Sky Sports he was diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer’s. This seems a particularly cruel disease for a
man with so much to be proud to remember.
His last public appearance came in 2011 when he unveiled a statue of
himself at the Ricoh Arena. In 2012 he was
moved to a nursing home where he spent his last three years.
Jimmy Hill died on 19th
December 2015 aged 87. He can honestly
be considered to have lived a full life and much of it in the service of
others. His love of football was obvious
and whether you agreed with him or not, you cannot deny he had the game’s best
interests at heart.
All footballers these
days owe a debt of gratitude to Jimmy every time they negotiate a new contract
and look at their bank balance. Every
supporter who enjoys the comfort of a matchday experience can largely tip their
hat to Jimmy for having the foresight to consider them when other clubs were
just content to pack as many people in for the match itself. When you watch coverage of football from the
comfort of your home, you can thank Jimmy for pioneering many ideas to improve
the viewing experience. There are many
other things for football to be thankful to Jimmy for and we will never know
what might have been had he not been around.
Given the events at FIFA recently, one feels certain the organisation
would not have got into such a mess had he been involved. His sense of fair play and concern for the
paying spectator would have given the international game a completely different
look.
As it is we can be
thankful for being around when Jimmy was and thankful there are people who can
relay his story. In a time when football
and footballers have never been richer, football is a poorer for his loss.
