JIMMY HILL; VERY MUCH A CHINNED WONDER

Jimmy Hill's third wife, Bryony, has written a  book about her husband and her experiences shared with him over their 24 year marriage. Jimmy now has dementia and many of us will have our own opinions about the man, who might be regarded as one of the most influential men in football.

Born in July 1927, he played football from 1949 to 1961 for Brentford (83 times) and Fulham (276) and managed Coventry between 1961-67. He never made it to international stage but he had many strings to his bow, which I think makes him a bit of a hero.

He escorted Racquel Welch around London over a weekend in 1972, he was part of the Fuham team that made it into the top flight and he scored five goals in an away league fixture at Doncaster in 1958.

As manager of Coventry City for six years, he led them through two promotions to the First Division and then used his sharp brain to become Chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association in 1957. He led the campaign to abolish to maximum wage of £20 a week (Johnny Haynes, at Fulham, became the first player to earn £100 a week), at Coventry, he developed the first all seater stadium and established the concept of three points for a win (which George Raynor had suggested many years earlier!!see previous blog) and wrote club songs for Coventry (The Sky Blue Song) and Arsenal (Good Old Arsenal).

In January 1961, he called off a proposed strike by Football League players as the League and PFA met to scrap the "binding contract" that ties players to their clubs for "life", the so called "slavery contract". George Eastham benefitted from this ruling folowing complications over his move from Newcastle Utd to Arsenal.

He was the first player to front a football television programme, was Head of Sport at London Weekend TV (1968-72) and as a television executive he introduced punditry to the screen (during the World Cup in 1970) and fronted Match of the Day over 600 times. He lifted the ban on matchday interviews, introduced the first electronic scoreboard in 1964, the first colour match day programme and in 1965 showed the first live match via CCTV at Coventry's stadium. In 1999, he moved to Sky with the Sunday Supplement.

He is the only footballer to have been manager, director, managing director and chairman of a club.

After Coventry, he had a spell as Chairman at Charlton, spent some time at Fulham and crucially blocked a potential merger with QPR at that time.

On September 16 1972, he attended the match at Highbury between Arsenal and Liverpool, When a linesman pulled a muscle and could not continue. This was before the fourth official, so when the matchday announcer called for help over the tannoy, Hill, a qualified referee, stepped up to fill the gap!

In April 1975 as managing director of Coventry, he oversaw a crucial relegation match, at home, against Bristol Rovers . The crowd caused a delay in the kick off time by ten minutes, whereas the other important match between Sunderland and Everton kicked off on time. As the "electronic scoreboard" showed that Sunderland were losing 0-2, so the Coventry players wasted time for 10 minutes and eventually saved their day. Sunderland were relegated with Spurs and Stoke. Hill was reprimanded by the FA!

He is vice-president of the non-League Corinthian Casuals, Trustee of the Stable Lads Association and Patron of the local Labrador Dog Rescue.

Soon after his last appearance on Sky's Sunday supplement, he was diagnosed with early stages of Alzheimer's.

There is a statue erected at the Ricoh marking his contribution to the Sky Blues' success (2011 and unveiled by him) and also reminds us of his massive contribution to football. Jimmy has been in permanent care since 2012.