Portrait of Jimmy Hill

Birthday profile

Jimmy Hill

Jimmy Hill, English footballer, manager, and sportscaster (died 2015)

Born
July 22, 1928
Died
December 19, 2015
Zodiac sign
Cancer
Birth year
1928

About Jimmy Hill

James William Thomas Hill, OBE (22 July 1928 – 19 December 2015) was an English footballer and later a television personality. His career included almost every role in the sport, including player, trade union leader, coach, manager, director, chairman, television executive, presenter, pundit, analyst and assistant referee. Hill began his playing career at Brentford in 1949 and moved to Fulham three years later. As chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association, he successfully campaigned for the abolition of the Football League's maximum wage in 1961. After retiring as a player, he took over as manager of Coventry City, modernising the team's image and guiding them from the Third Division to the First. In 1967, he began a career in football broadcasting, and from 1973 to 1988 was host of the BBC's Match of the Day. Hill first came into football as a fan, regularly watching football at local club Crystal Palace. He set a club record by scoring five goals for Fulham in an away match against Doncaster Rovers in 1958 and was part of the team that gained promotion to the First Division. In November 1961, after retiring as a player aged 33, Hill became manager of Coventry City.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Jimmy Hill timeline

  1. He set a club record by scoring five goals for Fulham in an away match against Doncaster Rovers in 1958 and was part of the team that gained promotion to the First Division.
  2. In November 1961, after retiring as a player aged 33, Hill became manager of Coventry City.

The world when Jimmy Hill was born

Jimmy Hill was born in 1928. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1928

  • #1 song"Makin' Whoopee" – Eddie Cantor
  • Top movieSteamboat Willie (first Mickey Mouse)
  • Best-selling bookLady Chatterley's Lover – D.H. Lawrence

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentKnute Rockne's "Win one for the Gipper" speech
  • Top headlineHerbert Hoover elected president
  • Technology milestonePenicillin discovered by Alexander Fleming
  • Defining fadMickey Mouse mania
  • Notable inventionSliced bread
  • World population2.07 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderCalvin Coolidge
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • U.S. population120.5M

1928 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Jimmy Hill's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19282026
Gas$0.21$3.45/gal
Average home$6,200$435,000
Average income$3,800$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population120.5M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Transfermarkt, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.