Jimmy Hill

One of my heroes died today. Jimmy Hill probably did more to modernise football in England than anyone else. His career is summarised here. But it was his work as manager of Coventry City FC in the 1960s which changed my life.  

Just at the time when I was starting to become interested in the game, he joined my home town club in 1961. He introduced massive innovations in the way the Club was run and delivered a powerful integration of football into the life of the City. In less than 6 years he led to team from the Third Division to promotion to the top tier of English football in 1967.  I was one of over 51,000 people who saw the team win promotion and then watched him conduct the crowd in singing the club anthem, which he wrote - the Sky Blue Song.

He then resigned to start a hugely successful media career as the first real "pundit." But his legacy remained with the team he christened the Sky Blues, who spent 34 years in the top tier.

Today we drew 1-1 with Oldham.  In addition to the emotional minute's applause at the start and lots of singing of his song, the crowd spontaneously gave even louder applause in the 87th minute.  Jimmy had died aged 87. Coventry won the FA Cup, for the only time in their history (so far) in 1987.