Sunday Fulham Stuff (20/12/15)...

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Jimmy Hill dead: How the former Match of the Day pundit changed football forever
The former Coventry City manager, chairman and broadcaster left as big a mark on football as any

Football legend Jimmy Hill died today aged 87 following a battle with Alzheimer's disease.

Hill, the former Coventry City manager and Match of the Day presenter, was diagnosed in 2008 and had been living in a nursing home in Sussex.

What many, especially younger fans, will not know is that Hill was responsible for numerous changes that made football what it is today.

Hill enjoyed a moderate career at Brentford and then Fulham, but it was off the pitch where his smarts and innovative thinking changed the game for good.

WAGES
Hill was named as the Chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) in 1957. At the time of his appointment wages were capped at a maximum of £20 a week - Hill led the fight to break the wage barrier.

In 1961, under the threat of strike, an agreement was made between Hill and the clubs to scrap the capped fees. England captain Johnny Haynes, a former team-mate of Hill's, became the first player to earn £100 a week.

Annual salaries for footballers now run into the millions.

INNOVATOR
Hill became manager of Coventry City, leading the club through something called the Sky Blue Revolution, work he continued as chairman of the club.

He made numerous changes to the club that seem commonplace in stadiums around the world now, including club hospitality, a new kit, a club song, club radio and a mascot.

Before he took over the media was banned from access at football grounds and were unable to interview players - he lifted those bans and Coventry were the first club to invite camera crews into the grounds. Other teams soon followed.

Coventry, like most clubs, had been male dominated, Hill made the stadium more family friendly for women and children, selling fizzy drinks and snacks and getting pop stars to perform.

Highfield Road boasted the country's first electronic scoreboard and was the first to show a live match, via CCTV.

Coventry also introduced the first full colour matchday programme and Highfield Road was the first all-seater stadium in the UK, completed in 1981. The Hillsborough disaster led to an introduction of all-seat stadiums throughout the UK in 1990.

Jimmy Hill (pictured 1964) as manager of Coventry City - he would later become chairman

BROADCASTER
As the Head of Sport for ITV, Hill made several important changes to the way the game was watched on TV. He introduced panels and pundits for the 1970 World Cup (imagine watching a game without them now).

Hill then moved to the BBC to become presenter of Match of the Day, quickly becoming a favourite of the nation.

He spent 15 years as the main presenter, before being replaced by Des Lynam in 1988, racking up more than 600 appearances on the show.

Hill was also a presenter or analyst on every major international tournament from 1966 to 1998.


Jimmy Hill spent 15 years as Match of the Day's main presenter

POINTS
Arguably his most important change, one that changed the course of football history and trophies, Hill was the leading voice in lobbying for the Football Association to reward attacking play by getting more points for a win.

Up to 1980, two points would be given for a win and one for a draw. The English Football League made the change to three points for a win in 1981, a move that was finally embraced fully by Fifa in 1995 - it is now standard practice at every level of the game.

Hill also called for substitutions and for relegation and promotion to be introduced to add excitement until the end of the season.


http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/jimmy-hill-dead-how-the-former-match-of-the-day-pundit-changed-football-forever-a6779706.html

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Fulham and TV legend Jimmy Hill dies aged 87 after long Alzheimer's battle


Jimmy Hill back in 1992 (Mandatory Credit: Anton Want /Allsport)

Former football player and Match Of The Day presenter Jimmy Hill has died aged 87, his agent has announced.

The Londoner, who made his name playing for Fulham in the 1950s, enjoyed a second career as a distinguished broadcaster. He died after suffering from Alzheimer's disease for a number of years.

In a statement, his agent, Jane Morgan, said: "It is with great sadness that Bryony Hill and the children of Jimmy Hill have announced that Jimmy passed away peacefully today aged 87 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. Bryony was beside him."

Hill will be cremated at a private ceremony.

A service for his friends and colleagues will be held in the new year, his agent said.



Read more at: http://www.london24.com/sport/football/fulham_and_tv_legend_jimmy_hill_dies_aged_87_after_long_alzheimer_s_battle_1_4354041
Copyright © LONDON24

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Jimmy Hill: Match of the Day host who changed football

By Chris Bevan
BBC Sport

When Jimmy Hill moved from ITV to the BBC to present Match of the Day in 1973, the Radio Times announced the news by putting him on its cover under the headline 'Catch of the Year'.

There was a very good reason for the excitement: Hill, who died on Saturday aged 87, had revolutionised televised football as head of sport at London Weekend Television and he arrived at the BBC with the mandate of modernising Match of the Day.

He succeeded, helping to make it a national institution. As the face of the programme, he would go on to be one of the most recognisable TV personalities of the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

In the days when there were only three channels, the programme regularly commanded viewing figures of more than 12 million, about double its average now. And Hill became a cult figure because of his distinctive appearance as well as the forthright and occasionally off-the-wall views he expressed in front of the camera.

Hill was well aware of the programme's popularity, something former Match of the Day pundit Bob Wilson discovered during his decade on the show, from the mid-1970s onwards.

Hill was a presenter and analyst, who travelled to watch games then hosted Match of the Day live

"On one occasion, fire alarms rang out all around us in the studio," Wilson said in a book commemorating the programme's 40th anniversary in 2004.

"Jimmy looked at me and asked what I thought we should do. When I replied that we ought to get the heck out of there, he looked bemused and said 'no, no, the nation needs us', and he meant it!"

In total, Hill made more than 600 appearances on Match of the Day and remains the programme's longest-serving anchor, spending 16 seasons fronting the show.

When Des Lynam replaced him in 1989, he stayed on for another decade as a pundit. In total he worked for ITV and the BBC on nine World Cups (1966-1998) and eight European Championships (1968-1996).

'Bearded beatnik'
When Hill joined Match of the Day, the limitations of 1970s technology meant he had to attend a game if he was going to analyse it.

Back then, there was no other way to watch live - so he often used a private plane to get back to Television Centre in time for the show.

Not everybody agreed with his analysis, and he was not always taken seriously, but his long and distinguished broadcasting career was only a tiny part of the story of his lifetime spent in football - and the wider impact he had on the sport he loved cannot be underestimated.

On the pitch
Full name: James William Thomas Hill
Born: Balham, London, 22 July 1928
Before football: He worked at an insurance company and for a stockbroker after leaving school and as a clerk in the Royal Army Service Corps during his national service
The player: An amateur with Reading after leaving the army, he started his pro career at Brentford in 1949 on £7 per week, which he supplemented in the summer by selling light bulbs and running a chimney sweeping business. Hill joined Fulham in 1952, in exchange for Jimmy Bowie and £5,000

Before he became a TV pundit, presenter and executive, Hill was a footballer-turned union leader dubbed the 'bearded beatnik' because of his willingness to challenge the system.

He received just one booking in his 12-year professional career and responded by writing to the Football Association demanding they introduce an appeal process.

A charismatic innovator and forward thinker, some of the ideas Hill helped make a reality included the abolition of the maximum wage, establishing a player's right to freedom of movement at the end of his contract and the introduction of three points for a win.

Hill's most prolific performance for Fulham saw him score five goals against Doncaster Rovers in 1958

He was also a pioneering coach, successful manager and inventive chairman.

Appropriately he was also a versatile footballer, playing in every position apart from goalkeeper during the nine years he spent at Fulham after joining from Brentford in 1952, although he was mainly used as inside-right, or deep-lying striker, to use modern parlance.

Hill worked as an FA coach while he was still a Fulham player

The son of a Balham milkman, he scored 41 goals in 277 games for the Cottagers but, other than his famous cameo as a stand-in linesman during a game between Arsenal and Liverpool in 1972,  his time on the pitch was the least eventful part of his life in the sport.

Although he scored in every round of the FA Cup when Fulham reached the semi-finals in 1958, his most notable achievements as a player came after he was appointed chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association in 1956.

Hill campaigned to end the Football League's £20 maximum wage, threatening a strike before he succeeded in abolishing the ruling in 1961. Within months Johnny Haynes had become England's first £100-a-week player.

Hill briefs the press over the possible players' strike in the wages and contracts dispute

That same year, Hill's playing career was ended by a long-term knee injury, and his first book 'Striking for Soccer' was published.

In it, he advocated more major changes to the game, including a super league, winter break and regular midweek evening games played under floodlights.

Perhaps the most radical idea was the role he saw television playing in the game. Hill argued one game a weekend should be played live in front of the cameras on Friday nights.

He saw that idea bear fruit more than 20 years later, when with Hill as host, Match of the Day experimented with live games on Fridays during the 1983-84 season.

In the dugout and the boardroom
The coach: Earned his FA coaching qualifications by the age of 24 and was running the same courses two years later. Took Fulham's pre-season training while still a Cottagers' player and also coached the Oxford and London University teams, and Sutton United part-time.
The manager: In charge at Coventry from 1961 to 1967, winning promotion twice but never managing in the top flight.
The executive: Coventry's managing director and then chairman from 1975 to 1983. Also spent time as Charlton chairman and part of a consortium that rescued Fulham from bankruptcy in 1987.

Love affair with Coventry
Hill did not have to wait as long to implement some of his other suggestions, which also included better facilities and more entertainment for fans, after being appointed manager of Coventry in December 1961 at the age of 33.

His first act was to lift a 10-year club ban on players talking to the press. He demanded they call him 'JH' rather than 'boss' or 'gaffer', did not sign anybody older than 25, and introduced a scientific, analytical approach to training.

His appointment was the start of a long love affair with the club that, on and off, lasted 22 years and took in various roles.

During six years as manager, he took City from the bottom of the old third division and into the top flight, before leaving after securing that second promotion to pursue his TV career, initially off the screen.

In that time, with the blessing of former chairman Derrick Robbins, he overhauled Coventry's image with what became known as the 'Sky Blue Revolution' - changing their home kit from navy and white back to the colours they had last used half a century before, and introducing a nickname and club song to match.

He introduced English football's first electronic scoreboard, launched its first glossy match magazine, enticed fans to arrive well before kick-off with match-day radio and pre-match pop concerts. He also ran the club's own rail service for fans to get to away games.

He was also responsible for the first beam-back broadcast, in October 1965, when City's midweek win at Cardiff was watched by 10,295 fans at their own ground.

Hill's priority was to make the local community feel part of City's success - he made a point of using 'we' whenever he referred to the club - to the extent he considered exploding a huge firework or mortar shell on the half-way line to alert the whole of the city every time they scored, and only dropped the idea when he realised it would endanger the lives of fans and players.

"The idea was to cement the relationship between the club and our fans," Hill told BBC Sport in 2005, when discussing his innovations.

"When you start to put your mind to things like that, what it's like to be a supporter and how you can make it more enjoyable for them, you realise there is not any particular cost in doing it."

On screen and in song
The broadcaster: First worked as a pundit for ITV on the 1964 FA Cup final and part of the BBC panel for the 1966 World Cup. London Weekend Television's head of sport from 1967-1972 and deputy controller of programmes in 1972-73. Worked for the BBC from 1973 to 1999 on a variety of other sports as well as football and fronted Sunday Supplement on Sky Sports between 1999 and 2006.
The author: As well as his 1998 autobiography, Hill wrote two books: 'Striking for Soccer' (1961) and 'Improve Your Soccer' (1966), had a regular column in the Daily Express and the News of the World and in the mid-1960s launched a magazine called 'Jimmy Hill's Football Weekly'.
He also co-wrote Coventry's 'The Sky Blue Song' (1962) and penned 'Good Old Arsenal' (for the 1971 FA Cup final).

'You can't be a hooligan sitting down'
Hill's managerial career ended by his own choice in 1967, when TV beckoned. He had wanted a 10-year contract to stay on as Coventry manager but was only offered five. He would be back, however.

Hill returned to the club in 1975, first as managing director, and later as chairman. More innovations followed.

He embraced sponsorship - notably by incorporating the 'T' logo of now defunct car company Talbot into Coventry's kit - and was responsible for turning Highfield Road into England's first all-seater stadium in 1981 with the slogan "you can't be a hooligan sitting down".

That idea was too far ahead of its time - and only lasted a matter of months thanks to rioting Leeds fans who ripped up the seats - but another of his proposals that year would have a much longer and larger impact.

Amid concern from fellow chairmen over sliding attendances, Hill campaigned for the introduction of three points for a win rather than two, with the reasoning that it promoted attacking, and thus more entertaining, football.

Within 14 years, every major league in the world had followed suit, and the system was also introduced at the 1994 World Cup.

Hill and Tommy Docherty at the launch of his magazine 'Jimmy Hill's Football Weekly' in 1967

By the start of the 1980s, Hill's television career was also in full swing. He had joined LWT as their head of sport in 1967 and immediately poached the BBC's Brian Moore, who would be the face and voice of ITV football for most of the next 30 years.

The introduction of technology like the first slow-motion replay device in the UK and a predictive computer nicknamed 'Cedric' helped ITV's 'The Big Match' outshine 'Match of the Day'. And more success came at the 1970 World Cup, when Hill was responsible for installing ITV's panel of experts in a studio at Wembley.

Hill went for outspoken extroverts like Malcolm Allison and appointed himself as presenter, and the result was TV gold. For the first time at a football tournament, ITV's audiences were bigger than the BBC's.

By the time he joined the BBC in 1973, Hill was approaching celebrity status. The same Radio Times that announced his arrival on its cover described him inside as "belonging in the classic mould of those sporting heroes beloved of boys' comics like Wizard and Hotspur".

He would help Match of the Day become a national institution, also bringing fame to commentators and co-hosts John Motson and Barry Davies. They would come into the studio to analyse their own commentaries and present news round-ups in the days where the show could only show highlights from two top-flight games each weekend.

Hill featured in the title sequence for three years from 1977, when a giant picture of him was cut up into 2,000 pieces and held aloft by schoolchildren at QPR's Loftus Road ground, which is adjacent to Television Centre.

'That's fame for you'
He remained outspoken as his TV career continued, and he was often controversial too. There was outrage from Scotland fans when he described David Narey's goal for Scotland against Brazil in the 1982 World Cup as a "toe poke".

He chose to play up to his supposed antagonism with the Scots in the years that followed, though he did apologise for his Narey remark on BBC Scotland in 1998. They were not the only set of fans to take offence, however.

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."

Hill left the BBC in 1999 and moved to Sky, chairing Jimmy Hill's Sunday Supplement, before leaving the organisation in 2006.

His footballing legacy was not forgotten when his media career ended, however. He received an award for his contribution to league football in 2009 and was inducted to the National Football Museum Hall of Fame with a special Lifetime Achievement award in 2010.

Coventry have remembered him too. In July 2011 a 7ft-bronze statue of Hill was unveiled at the Ricoh Stadium, after £100,000 was raised by fans.

A giant mural of Hill at Loftus Road featured in Match of the Day's opening credits

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22268587

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Jimmy Hill obituary
Footballer, manager, pundit and campaigner fuelled by vast reserves of energy who fought for abolition of maximum wage for players

immy Hill, who has died aged 87, after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease, exerted a degree of influence on the modern evolution of football that has been matched by few other individuals. Fans growing up in the 1970s and 1980s knew him chiefly as a presenter of BBC's Match of the Day, on which he showed off his prominent bearded chin and an unfailing readiness to give a sharp-edged opinion.

But as a player for Fulham in the 1950s he had made a far more telling contribution to the game when he was instrumental in a successful footballers' campaign to abolish the maximum wage, which had long kept even the biggest stars of British football under the thumb. It was a profound change that shaped modern professional football.

Hill's intervention came as chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association in 1961, when he issued a strike threat that finally brought an end to the era of the £20 maximum wage, thus enabling his Fulham team mate Johnny Haynes to open his pay packet and discover that he had become England's first £100-a-week footballer. Today's Premier League superstars, some of them taking home £250,000 a week and more, can trace their good fortune back to Hill's decisive contribution to that necessary struggle.

The range of his involvement in the game made him a unique figure, one who brought an urge to innovate fuelled by vast reserves of energy to each of his roles. A player first, with Brentford and then Fulham, a successful manager at Coventry City, where he later became manager-director, he went on to be appointed Charlton Athletic's chairman before assuming the same function at Fulham. As a broadcaster he introduced the slow-motion replays and expert panels of former players that continue, in the digital age, to define television's analytical approach to football.

His various campaigns to increase the game's entertainment value included a passionate advocacy of awarding three points for a win, rather than two, in order to reduce the scope for pre-arranged stalemates. Statisticians may continue to argue, but all fans know that when this formula was adopted in England in 1981, although not becoming standard around the world until after the 1994 World Cup, it virtually eliminated the stodgy, safety-first attitude that had so damaged football as a spectacle.

Born in Balham, south London, the son of William, a milk and bread delivery man who had served in the first world war, and his wife, Alice, Hill attended the Henry Thornton grammar school in Clapham (later becoming president of its old boys' association) and was a fan of Crystal Palace. On leaving school he went to work at the Stock Exchange, but his period of national service, in which he served as a clerk in the Royal Army Service Corps and played football alongside professionals, saw the first stirrings of interest in a different kind of career.

In 1949 he played a few games for Folkestone, a non-league club, and had a trial with Reading. The offer of a first professional contract, however, came from Brentford, then in the second division. He spent two years at Griffin Park, playing 83 league matches and scoring 10 goals with the future England manager Ron Greenwood as a teammate before moving, in 1952, to Fulham, also in the second division, for the respectable fee of £25,000.

He had started his career as a left half, or what would now be called a left-sided midfielder, a position with defensive responsibilities in which his size and strength – he was 6ft and weighed 12-and-a-half stone – were a distinct asset. Gradually he developed into an inside right, working alongside Haynes, who was the inside left and principal creative influence on the side.

Hill played 276 league matches in nine seasons at Craven Cottage, scoring 41 goals. When Fulham reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup in 1958, he scored in every round. The following season, however, when they achieved promotion to the top flight, he failed to get on the scoresheet at all until Good Friday, when he scored a hat-trick – all three with headers, from corners taken by Tosh Chamberlain – as the team came from behind to beat Sheffield Wednesday 6-2.

In 1957 he had succeeded Jimmy Guthrie as chairman of the players' union, continuing the long fight for an end to the maximum wage. Encouraged by Cliff Lloyd, the union's secretary and a former Fulham player, he forced the clubs to capitulate in 1961. Two years later another battle would be won when, after George Eastham had protested against Newcastle United's refusal to allow him to join Arsenal, the clubs lost their quasi-feudal right to hang on to the ownership of players after the expiry of their contracts.

By that time Hill had retired as a player, at the age of 32, to become the manager of Coventry City, then languishing in the old third division. He might have waited another year before hanging up his boots, he later concluded, but spectacular success awaited him in his new role. With the financial support of the club's chairman, Derrick Robins, he gave the team a new all-blue kit, rechristened them the Sky Blues, introduced pre-match and half-time entertainment, provided free soft drinks and snacks for children, laid on a Sky Blue train to take supporters to away fixtures, and even co-wrote the club song, the Sky Blue Anthem, sung to the tune of the Eton boating song.

The reward for his enterprise came with promotion to the second division in 1964 and thence to the top flight, in 1967, for the first time in the club's history. Before they could make their debut in the first division, however, Hill resigned. In an abrupt career change, he had decided to move into television, first acting as technical adviser to a BBC series before, in 1968, joining London Weekend Television as head of sport. It was there, two years later, that he assembled a panel of well known figures to analyse matches from the 1970 World Cup finals in Mexico. The studio disagreements between Derek Dougan, Malcolm Allison, Bob McNab and others became obligatory viewing, and Hill had invented modern sporting punditry.

In 1972 he switched back to the BBC to present Match of the Day, where he encouraged the employment of slow-motion replays, using them not just as a way of looking at highlights, such as goals, but to examine incorrect decisions by match officials. He made more than 600 appearances on the show, becoming a national figure in the process.

As a pundit Hill was never afraid to make criticisms, challenge referees' decisions or float theories. Lasting enmity north of the border came his way when he dismissed the shot with which David Narey gave Scotland the lead against Brazil in the 1982 World Cup finals as a "toe-poke" (Brazil won 4-1, which hardly salved the wound). And he earned more widespread scorn when, after the entire Romania squad suddenly decided to dye their hair blond during the 1998 World Cup finals, he suggested the move might help them pick each other out when passing the ball. Outside television, in 2004 he defended the former Manchester United manager Ron Atkinson over a racist comment Atkinson had made about the France footballer Marcel Desailly, claiming the N-word was merely "the language of the football field" and hardly worse than someone calling him "chinny".

Hill returned to Coventry City in 1975, first as managing director and then as chairman. When he delayed the kick-off of a vital relegation battle against Bristol City for 10 minutes at the end of the 1976-77 season, he was accused of taking the decision not out of consideration for fans still trying to get into the ground but because it would allow his players to know the result of the other match affecting relegation, involving Sunderland at Goodison Park. Sunderland lost and were relegated, and a Football League inquiry allowed the result to stand.

An involvement with football in Saudi Arabia had made him money, but much of it – and some of Coventry's, too – was lost when the club unsuccessfully attempted to extend its commercial interests to soccer in the US, through a franchise arrangement with the Washington Diplomats. In 1981 he made Coventry's Highfield Road the first all-seater stadium in English football, and in 1982 he attempted to lead a tour of English professional players to South Africa, at the time of the sporting boycott against the apartheid regime. The following year, with Coventry's fortunes in rapid decline, he was forced to stand down, moving on to become, briefly, chairman of Charlton Athletic.

There was drama of a happier kind after he returned to Fulham as chairman in 1987, staving off the threat of bankruptcy and a merger with Queen's Park Rangers before paving the way for a period of success and stability under a new owner, Mohammed Al Fayed. It cemented his place in the hearts of Fulham's supporters, grateful for his success in saving the club from extinction and preventing their beloved ground from falling into the hands of property developers.

He was appointed OBE for services to football in 1994. Leaving the BBC in 1999, he moved to Sky Sports, where for seven years he presented Jimmy Hill's Sunday Supplement, a discussion programme on which he was joined by three football reporters. A statue of him was unveiled outside Coventry's ground in 2011.

Perhaps no incident better sums up Hill's multifaceted life in football than the one that occurred at Highbury in September 1972, after a linesman, Dennis Drewitt, had left the field with a pulled muscle during the match between Arsenal and Liverpool. Since the match could not be completed without a full complement of qualified officials, an appeal was made over the tannoy. There to answer it, having attended the match as a spectator, was the familiar figure of Hill – suddenly revealed to be a fully qualified referee. Changing into a tracksuit, he ran the line for the remainder of a match between two teams destined to finish first and second at the end of the season. Somehow, nothing could have been less surprising.

He was married three times: first, in 1950, to Gloria, with whom he had two sons, Duncan and Graham, and a daughter, Alison; second, in 1961, to Heather, with whom he had a son, Jamie, and a daughter, Joanna; and third, in 1991, to Bryony.

• James William Hill, footballer, born 22 July 1928; died 19 December 2015


http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/dec/19/jimmy-hill?

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Former clubs pay tribute after football legend Jimmy Hill dies, 87

Fulham wore black armbands while first club Brentford observed a minute's silence


Jimmy Hill

Tributes are being paid to football legend Jimmy Hill, who has died aged 87.

Regarded as one of the industry's most influential figures, he spent his entire playing career in west London, starting his career at Brentford before moving to Fulham in 1952, where he spent nearly a decade playing almost 300 games and scoring more than 50 goals.

Fulham are wearing black armbands for Saturday's (December 19) clash against Bolton, while Brentford observed a minute's silence before its match against Huddersfield.

He changed the face of the sport as chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association, when he led the campaign for the scrapping of the £20-a-week maximum wage for professional footballers.

After an agreement was reached, his old Fulham team-mate Johnny Hayes became the first player to earn £100 a week.

After retiring from the game he became manager of Coventry City 1961, and after six years with the club he went into broadcasting, presenting Match of the Day for 25 years from 1973 to 1998. He also returned to Fulham as its chairman.

In a statement, his agent, Jane Morgan, said: "It is with great sadness that [his wife] Bryony Hill and the children of Jimmy Hill have announced that Jimmy passed away peacefully today aged 87 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. Bryony was beside him."

He was diagnosed with the Alzheimer's in 2008, and had been living in a nursing home in Sussex. He will be cremated at a private ceremony.


http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/west-london-news/former-clubs-pay-tribute-after-10626115?

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Jimmy Hill: 1928-2015

Fulham Football Club are deeply saddened to learn of the death of former player and chairman Jimmy Hill at the age of 87.

Born in Balham, South London, Hill appeared briefly for Fulham juniors in 1943, but didn't become a professional until May 1949 when he signed for Brentford. He went on to score 10 goals in 86 appearances for the Bees, mostly from wing-half.

Hill joined Fulham in March 1952 as a half-back, moving to the inside-right position when Bobby Robson was sold to West Bromwich Albion. His hard-working style enabled his more skilful colleagues the opportunity to shine.

Hill helped Fulham reach an FA Cup Semi-Final against Manchester United in 1958, scoring in every round. The following season he made 32 appearances as the Whites returned to Division One. In scoring five times at Doncaster Rovers in March 1958, he equalled the Club record for goals in a single game.

As chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association, Hill played a major part in the scrapping of the maximum wage. This momentous decision, taken by the Football League in 1961, led to Fulham teammate Johnny Haynes becoming the first £100-a-week player.

After a 12-year playing career, Hill was forced to retire in June 1961 due to a knee injury. In total, he played 297 times in the league and cup for Fulham, scoring 52 goals. The following November he became Coventry City manager, spending six years at Highfield Road and leading them from the old Division Three to the top flight. Among his innovations were the first colour matchday programme in English football, pre-game entertainment and an electronic scoreboard.

In 1967 he moved into broadcasting as head of sport for ITV, helping revamp the way football was presented on television. He also had a spell as commercial manager at Fulham around this time. He moved to the BBC six years later where he became presenter of Match of the Day. He presented the programme more than 600 times. Hill joined Sky Sports in 1999.

Hill enjoyed another moment of notoriety in September 1972 when, during an Arsenal-Liverpool match at Highbury, he volunteered to become a substitute linesman after Dennis Drewitt had pulled a muscle and the match was in danger of being abandoned.

Hill returned to Coventry as managing director in April 1975, before becoming the chairman.

Hill also successfully lobbied for the introduction of the three-points-for-a-win system in 1981 and fought for the right for clubs to wear sponsors' logos on their shirts.

After a spell as chairman at Charlton Athletic, Hill returned to Fulham, helping form the consortium that saved the Club when property speculators tried to merge the Whites with Queens Park Rangers in 1987. Fulham held on to Craven Cottage and Hill stepped down as chairman in 1997 with Mohamed Al Fayed taking over.

The thoughts of all at Fulham are with Jimmy's family and friends at this sad time.


http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2015/december/19/jimmy-hill-1928-2015?

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McCormack rescues draw for Fulham at troubled Bolton

Bolton Wanderers 2 Fulham 2

Ross McCormack was Fulham's saviour once again as he struck a late equaliser against the Championship's bottom side.

On a difficult day for the club, following the death of former player and chairman Jimmy Hill, spirits were lifted when Luke Garbutt fired Fulham in front on 28 minutes.

McCormack was involved in that goal as well, robbing Bolton defender Prince-Desire Gouano before teeing up Garbutt for a right-footed drive which flew in from distance.

Fulham continued to threaten as Alex Kacaniklic clipped the crossbar a few minutes later while Tim Ream shot wide against his former club.

But troubled Bolton, who have won only once in the league this season, improved after the break and turned the game around with two goals in 13 minutes.

Both were scored by Zack Clough, the first coming just after the hour mark as he was set up by Mark Davies before he put Bolton in front from Liam Feeney's corner.

But Fulham denied the hosts a morale-boosting win as McCormack fired in a superb free-kick, after Kacaniklic had been fouled by Emile Heskey.


http://www.westlondonsport.com/fulham/mccormack-rescues-draw-for-fulham-at-troubled-bolton?

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Fulham boss seethes at Bolton as side 'throw away two points'

It's a Gray day for the gaffer as Whites take lead but have to rely on McCormack's 13th of the season for a point

Stuart Gray was forced to let the rain batter him as he stood and watched his Fulham side batter Bolton.

However, the senior coach only witnessed two Whites goals in a game they could have lost to a club winless in 16 games, and whose players are not being paid.

Luke Garbutt cashed in on woeful defending to put Fulham ahead, but Zac Clough's brace set away hearts pounding.

Ross McCormack, like so many times already, was the rescuer, but his side are now eight games since they won.

A sorrowful Gray could only sigh at the 2-2 draw.

"I'm sat here and can't believe we've only got one point from the game," he said. "To go only 1-0 up at half-time, I said to the players that we hadn't been clinical enough, we need to be more ruthless.

"And it was same again second half – we had a great opportunity to make it 2-0, and suddenly it bites you and they get back in the game. Then when they go 2-1 up you're wondering if it's just one of those days, and then we're relying on Ross McCormack again to hit a worldy.

"I don't think I've been in a game where there's been so many one-on-ones with the goalkeeper.

"We've missed the target and we've hit the woodwork twice, but I've been in the game long enough to know that you need to convert your chances.

"At times we moved the ball very well and caused Bolton problems, but you know they're going to have a 10-minute period in the game, and that 10 minute period is when they got their noses in front because of us not being ruthless enough in front of goal."

He added: "We've put an excellent display in; we've created a number of chances, but it's two points thrown away.

"But heads could have dropped and we could easily have lost the game, so credit to the players, they stuck at it. Even at the death we've had a couple of chances to win the game."


http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/fulham-boss-seethes-bolton-side-10626825?

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Jimmy Hill was a player, activist, manager, chairman, referee and pundit, but above all an innovator... he transformed the game and that's how he should be remembered
Jimmy Hill has passed away at the age of 87 after a battle with Alzheimer's
Hill will be seen as one of British football's most significant figures
In his role PFA chairman Hill led the charge to abolish the maximum wage
He played for Fulham for nine years and racked up 276 league games
Hill retired from playing at 33 and moved into management with Coventry
He moved into broadcasting and introduced pundits to football coverage
Hill became the face of football, presenting Match of the Day for 27 years

Some 20 years have passed since that winter midnight when Jimmy Hill sat in the bar of a Midlands hotel, sipping Scotch and telling stories. Earlier that evening, he had spoken at a charity dinner, charming his audience with a string of breezy anecdotes. Now, in reflective mood, he looked back down the decades.

He recalled his broadcasting career and the central part he played in pioneering televised football. He touched on his experiences as a club chairman, director, chief executive, coach and manager. He mentioned his firebrand days as leader of the players' trade union.

But his warmest memories were of his playing days, especially those at Fulham, when life was less complicated and pressures were lighter and the worst that could happen was a bellowing curse from Johnny Haynes when yet another exquisite pass was wretchedly squandered. Jim's face would light up when he told his Fulham tales. Despite enjoying a whole string of remarkable careers, you knew that nothing would ever quite replace the joy, the laughter, the sheer fun that he found at Craven Cottage.

Jimmy Hill died on Saturday at the age of 87. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's for several years, his vivacious personality buried beneath the blanket of that cruel disease.

Those who knew him only in his later years saw a man who tended to live in the past, constantly returning to familiar themes: cheating players, timid referees, cynical coaches. In fact, he was much, much better than that. When his massive contribution has been adequately assessed, Hill will be seen as one of the most significant figures in the modern history of British football.

That playing career, which he loved so dearly, saw him score 52 goals in almost 300 games for Fulham, many of them courtesy of the majestic Haynes. 'He wasn't the very best I ever played with,' Haynes would confide years later, 'but he never stopped trying. He used to drive me bloody mad at times, but you couldn't help liking him. That was Jim.'

It was during the Fulham years that Hill came to prominence as chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association. While his fellow executive Cliff Lloyd supplied the grafting and the groundwork, Hill became the public face of the movement which was to revolutionise the professional game.


   
Hill was a footballer, for Fulham (left) and Brentford, a linesman (right), a chairman and a football presenter


Hill spent nine years with Fulham and scored 41 goals in 276 appearances for the west London club


Hill was responsible for scrapping the maximum wage during spell as PFA chairman

It helped, of course, that the face in question was so distinctive; the elongated chin decorated with a vaguely piratical beard became a familiar feature on back pages and news bulletins as Hill sought to overthrow the iniquitous system of players being effectively slaves of their clubs, with a £20 maximum wage and no freedom of contract.

Hill marshalled his forces, threatened strikes, outwitted the employers and won public support for his cause. After a bitterly protracted battle, freedom was achieved. The most prominent beneficiary was the great Haynes, who was paid £100 per week by Fulham amid dark mutterings that the game, and quite possibly the nation, was going to the dogs.

But Hill had dislodged the pebble and the resulting avalanche started to envelope the game. There was a certain logic to it all: if there was no maximum, then the sky was the limit. Yet when the likes of Wayne Rooney, Theo Walcott, Raheem Sterling and various assorted Chelsea players started to pocket salaries of up to £10million, even Hill would concede that wage inflation had moved far beyond his imagination.

Having retired as a player at 33, Hill swiftly became manager of Coventry City. He was full of ideas for the Division Three club. Backed by a resourceful chairman, he renamed the club the 'Sky Blues' and began to transform the team, the ground, and the very image of an ailing institution. People became aware of Coventry, as he never missed the chance to steal a headline. In just a handful of seasons, he took them through Division Three, then on through the old Second Division, leaving when promotion to the top flight had been achieved. There were those who said that Hill was more sound than substance. Those days at Coventry told a different tale.


Hill retired from playing at the age of 33 after nine years with Fulham and moved into management


Hill poses for a photo with British entertainer Bruce Forsyth at an event the Savoy Hotel in 1981

Typically, his next move was both brave and timely. He moved into television; first, and briefly, with the BBC, then, memorably, as Head of Sport at London Weekend Television. The lasting memory of four heady years at LWT was surely the coverage of the 1970 World Cup and the arrival of the pundits.

While the BBC covered Mexico 70 in the approved, professional manner, ITV offered flamboyant controversy from former players such as Malcolm Allison, Derek Dougan and Pat Crerand. They argued and asserted in the way that pro footballers had always done in the privacy of their dressing rooms, yet those arguments were a revelation to Seventies audiences. They proved an enormous attraction and surpassed the BBC in the ratings for the first time at a football event. The ITV executives bathed in the reflected glory and Hill took the share he deserved.

And yet, within two years, he was off to the BBC to present Match of the Day and become, effectively, the face of football. Saturday night after Saturday night, through 27 years and more than 600 appearances, he introduced, analysed and explained the state of the national game to a nation deprived of live coverage. With the possible exception of the incomparable David Coleman, no sporting media personality has remotely approached that level of importance.


Hill poses with Fulham chairman Tommy Trinder after moving to Craven Cottage from Brentford in 1952

   
A final public appearance for Hill came in 2011 when a statue was unveiled in his honour in Coventry

He had, years earlier, renewed his links with Coventry, becoming first managing director and then chairman. It was while he was with Coventry that he put through an idea he had long espoused; persuading the rest of the League to adopt three points for a win.

Along with Hill's maximum wage abolition, it is the reform which has had the greatest, and most beneficial, impact on English football. He also made Coventry's Highfield Road the first all-seat stadium in the country. It was described as an idea whose time had come, but that time would have been long delayed without the input of J Hill.

At some stage, he had found the time to pass a refereeing course, on the grounds that the knowledge would come in useful. Sure enough, one afternoon at the old Highbury Stadium, the referee fell injured, a linesman took over and the appeal went out for a qualified replacement linesman. With an entirely bogus show of reluctance, Jim stepped into the breach, accepting the predictable abuse from the fans with jutting chin and evil grin. It was around this time that he hit on the idea of taking an unofficial 'Old England' team to Belfast. The Troubles had begun to ease a little and Jim thought a match between English and Irish veterans might hasten the process. I was invited to accompany the side for the purpose of a newspaper feature, and a group of us packed into a minibus from the airport to the city centre hotel.

There were British Army patrols at almost every road junction, tribal murals on every wall and an air of unease hanging over the old town. Jimmy Greaves sat up near the front, alongside a security guard who introduced himself as 'Bill'.


Jimmy will be remembered largely as a face on TV and especially Match of the Day by the modern generation


Hill poses alongside Barry Davies, John Motson (top row), Alan Hansen, Des Lynam and Gary Lineker (bottom row) ahead of the BBC World Cup '98 coverage

Jimmy chatted amiably about the situation in the province. 'So tell me, Bill,' he said. 'What's it all about? I mean, why's everyone got the 'ump?' Bill seemed reluctant to explain. We were entering a troubled area and Bill produced a large automatic weapon, with which he swept the landscape.

'Oh my Gawd!' moaned Jim. 'I know who got us into this. Why did I listen to that bleeding Jimmy Hill?'
Yet he knew that we loved him, no matter what. Because we all loved him. Those of us who were on the rota for his Sunday Supplement show on Sky would fall in at dawn to sit around a table in an unconvincing mock-up of his kitchen, and join him for chatter and chuckles. He could be crotchety and stubborn, yet he was endlessly endearing.

Sadly, we witnessed the change which crept over him, the unmistakable signs of the unspeakable illness. He hung on for as long as he could, but it became too much and the darkness descended.

Yet that is not the way we shall remember him. For, in his stunning prime, he was lively, witty, audacious and brave. Above all, he was an innovator, possibly the greatest innovator the sport has known. Jimmy Hill transformed the game he loved so well. And that is how he deserves to be remembered.

HOW JIMMY HILL EARNED HIS PLACE IN HISTORY
To younger generations, Jimmy Hill was a former footballer turned Match of the Day pundit, yet that barely scratches the surface of one of the game's most colourful characters and important innovators. Here's a list of the achievements which will guarantee Hill's place in football's history books.

The maximum wage
Hill was playing for Fulham when he became chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association and campaigned to scrap the game's maximum wage. Footballers were on £20 a week at the time but Hill's campaign, which included the threat of strike action, forced Football League chiefs to cave in and in 1961 the cap was abolished. Hill's team-mate, Johnny Haynes, became the first man to earn £100 a week.

The Sky Blue revolution
When Hill became Coventry manager he revolutionised matchdays for fans. In came the first colour programmes, he changed the kit to Sky Blue, introduced a club song, organised pre-match entertainment with a mascot to get fans in early, chartered 'football special' trains for Coventry's travelling supporters and oversaw the installation of the game's first electronic scoreboard. Later, as chairman, he masterminded the transformation of Highfield Road into England's first all-seat stadium in 1981.

The friend of the media
When Hill arrived at Coventry in 1961, players were banned from talking to journalists. Hill not only lifted that ban but promptly invited reporters and camera crews into Highfield Road to conduct their interviews.

The pioneering pundit
It was no surprise that when Hill left Coventry he went into TV and by 1968 was head of sport at London Weekend Television. He fronted their 1970 World Cup coverage which, at his suggestion, saw the first use of a panel of experts. Insights from Malcolm Allison, Paddy Crerand and Derek Dougan ensured that, for the only time, ITV won the ratings war with the Beeb. It was hardly a surprise, therefore, when the BBC poached Hill in 1973 to front Match of the Day.

The points change
With crowds dwindling, the outspoken Hill decided it was time to shake up football and lobbied the FA to bring in three points for a win in 1981. To show how far ahead of his time Hill was, it was more than a decade before the rest of the world began to adopt it, the world governing body, FIFA, following in 1995.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3367348/Jimmy-Hill-player-activist-manager-chairman-referee-pundit-innovator-transformed-game-s-remembered.html#ixzz3uqmXRUJU
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