149. The One About Jimmy Hill

This week Jon Holmes, Colin Shindler and Jim White are talking about one particular player – and one manager and one club director and one club chairman and one trade union official and one television executive and one presenter and one analyst and famously on one occasion, one linesman... none other than the Bearded Wonder that was Jimmy Hill.  That simple list of his achievements and the different roles he played within football indicate what a unique individual he was.  It’s regrettable that in later life he became something of a caricature and a figure who could be easily mocked with his pointed chin and his cross of St. George earrings.  Yet no single figure made a bigger impact on English football in the second half of the twentieth century than Jimmy Hill.  It was Hill who suggested three points for a win which stopped both teams playing

for a draw twenty minutes from time.  He never received the honours that his innovations merited and his final years suffering from dementia made for a sad end which Football Ruined My Life is determined to correct.

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