LOVE him or hate him, former Fulham player Jimmy Hill is one of the most experienced pundits in English football. Instantly recognisable from that famous jutting chin, Hill is currently host of the Sky Sports chat show Sunday Supplement, although is invariably associated with BBC's Match of the Day. Hill's footballing experience spans six decades while his knowledge of the sport is boosted by the fact he is the only person in England to have been a player, coach, manager, director and finally chairman of a Football League club. Starting his playing career at Brentford in 1949, Hill moved to Fulham in 1953, playing over 300 games for the club up to 1961.
Modern football stars are indebted to Hill as it was he who, as Chairman of the PFA from 1957 to 1961, led the successful campaign to end the £20 maximum wage. After his playing days Hill moved into management, taking over Coventry City before his transition into television.
He returned to Coventry in 1975 as Managing Director before becoming Chairman.
In television, Hill has headed up London Weekend Television's Sport department and was Deputy Controller of Programmes before joining the BBC as presenter of Match of The Day. As a presenter or analyst he has worked on every World Cup since 1966 and every European Championship since 1968.
In 1987 he came full circle returning to Fulham as Chairman, steering the club away from a merger with Queens Park Rangers.
In 1999 he was presented a Lifetime Achievement award by the Royal Television Society.
Whilst playing golf at the Robert Winsor Charity Golf Tournament at the Bendinat Golf Club in Palma Hill was kind enough to answer some questions put to him by the Bulletin. In typical Jimmy Hill style though the answers are long-winded and quite forthright.
Q: You do a lot of charity golf tournaments, how does this one rate?
A:It was a lovely day. The golf course is beautiful and it's very well organised. We're very lucky that we can enjoy ourselves so much and at the same time raise money for such a worthwhile charity.
It's very lucky, that's why golf is unlike other sports in many other ways because it lends itself to raising money for charity. It's really worthwhile and a great way to spend a day. It's a lovely course, but it's very powerful. If you get a par on any hole you're doing well. But where else would you rather be; sunshine, blue sky, wonderful golf course and very nice company and raising money for charity?
Q: Is the financial state of football something that worries you?
A: I played for Fulham and I managed Coventry City.
While Fulham have got Al Fayed to look after themselves financially, Coventry have got themselves into a terrible position with owing up to 50 million pounds.
They've done everything they can to try to reduce it and to survive, but that's the same with about 80 percent of the clubs who are having a hell of a job to keep going. Players are being paid too much money.
Wimbledon, in a piece in the paper, said they pay 139 percent of their income in salaries never mind the other costs of running a club. Well how can you do that?
It's amazing, the pressure comes from the public, and the supporters of the club, to spend. They say I'm not going unless they do something about that defence and that pressure leads to create a situation where the clubs are thinking if only we can get up one more division we shall be in the money.
In the Premiership where there is vast sums of money to be earned at the highest level, when they fail to succeed only two or three can manage to get by and the others end up going nowhere.
The public are to blame though because they put pressure on the directors.
Q: By ending the maximum wage for footballers do you in some way feel personally responsible for the spiralling wages seen in today's game?
A: I've never changed my views. I've always argued that footballers should be paid what the clubs can afford to pay them but that there is no limit on it. I haven't changed my view at all.
I don't agree with the fact that clubs pay their players so much money. I think they should pay what they can afford to pay.
It was incorrect then that there was an artificial level set in the old days and it's equally incorrect for clubs now to be paying more than they can afford.
The argument now is that clubs like Leicester City that have gone into receivership have wiped out their debts. All the people they owe money to are not going to get anything and they start anew with a clean sheet and a new set of directors and the league are looking at it and asking can that be right?
Q: With finances at a premium do you see more importance put on club's youth schemes instead of simply buying expensive foreigners?
A: Obviously it has always been important for clubs to produce their own players.
Until a few years ago the FA did not allow boys to train at a club for more than an hour a week with a professional club, while in Holland for the past 40 years they've been taking the youngsters every afternoon of the week as they start school early and finish at one o'clock. So they're learning skills when skills are much easier to grab hold of and get into your system.
We've got out of that now at last. When you think how long we were allowing ourselves to create a system where our young players were growing up with inadequate tuition when all over Europe they have been doing it wonderfully well with their academies.
It can't follow that your potential world class footballers are born in France and not in England as there is no physical difference.
But the FA are to blame. Those who were running it in the days when they had that restriction are to blame.
Q: Surely though it's not just a lack of coaching youngsters, but the actual coaching itself?
A: One of the sad things is that the FA has lost its inspirational qualities.
Going back into my era lots of the players went into coaching because they really wanted to and the inspiration was there.
But then suddenly there was a dip in the kind of people who were running the coaching set-up and players finishing playing or even players who were still playing lost their enthusiasm for going on a coaching course and maybe later on becoming a coach and becoming a manager of a team.
It was awful in a way because then we start to get so many overseas managers.
For Fulham to be talking about getting a Spaniard or German or whatever, to me that sounds awful.
We've got used to the French now, but it's our own fault.
You reap what you sow and what you don't sow you don't get anything from.
The FA are responsible without any doubt and they must take responsibility for letting other countries get ahead of us in coaching terms.
Q: Has the poor coaching taken it's toll on the England national team?
A: In the World Cup they did exceedingly well.
One of the big problems is the press just destroy everything. They can't wait to have a go at Sven (Goran Eriksson).
One bad result and that's it, is he the right man for England and so on.
England have done pretty well under Eriksson. But England won't do as well as we all hope and get into the ten top countries in the world unless they start getting the youngsters coached from the age of seven.
It's started to happen now from the age of nine about six years ago so those lads are now 15. World Cups are won by teams with an average of 27 so we've got another dozen years to wait until they're at the same background as the kind of players they're having to play against.
It's not accidental, they're all facts. It's not opinion, it's fact.
Q: Do you miss Match of the Day?
A: No. I do the Sky programme where we discuss football which is great fun. It's live and it's exciting and it keeps the wolf from the door so I'm still connected with football and entertainment so I can still say what I want publicly.
It's not only a means of living but it's also a chance perhaps to guide opinions and get the game going in the right direction.
Q: Can you see the monopoly Manchester United and Arsenal have on the Premier League title being broken any time soon?
A: No. I would love to see some team come along and do it though.
I have nothing personal about Arsenal or Man United but it would be good to see a change.
Chelsea getting into fourth place this season was great and so was Newcastle sniffing around.
I used to play with Bobby Robson at Fulham. I bump into him a lot.
Cloth Ears was his name. He didn't have to go into the services because he had a problem with one ear and Robin Lawler, who was our lovely left-back, he was an Irish international, he used to give people nicknames and they usually stuck and Bobby's became Cloth Ears. The old Fulham lot still call him that.
Q: If you had the power, what one rule would you change to make football better?
A: I've already got rid of the maximum wage and I also invented the three points for a win.
It's quite amazing I can't believe it's happened. I was doing a scheme for the Rothman Isthmian League and I suggested they should do that because they were worried too many clubs were playing for a draw.
It means the last part of a game, when it's a draw, there's now a tendency to try to go and win it.
The last part of the game is the most important to the public because that's what's in their minds when they leave.
It's quite funny because now the whole world does it.
As for a rule change that would benefit football I would like to see other clubs be able to compete with the few.
I don't want to introduce artificial finances, but somehow it would be nice to see more teams able to compete at the top. I haven't got a magic answer though.
I think it would help if the public had a better idea of the game. Not the actual football but the running of a club and the costs involved so they don't stop going if a team is doing badly because that just puts more pressure on the club to spend more on players and then get into debt.
But I don't know what the answer to that is unless you change people!
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