Jimmy Hill, credited with transforming English football, dies aged 87

As a player he turned out for Fulham and Brentford before going on to manage at Coventry but he is best known for presenting Match of the Day.

He was 87. Hill’s family said he died Saturday Dec. 19, 2015 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s Disease.

The former Match of the Day presenter made more than 600 appearances on the programme.

Hill made 276 appearances as a striker for the Cottagers but earned greater recognition in his role as chairman of the PFA, with whom he successfully argued for the abolition of the £20-per-week maximum wage in 1961.

Hill, who had been suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease – diagnosed in 2008, had been living in a nursing home in Sussex and passed away earlier today.

Stars from the world of football spoke of Hill’s contribution to the game following the announcement of his death. “Bryony was beside him”.

Barbara Slater, BBC Director of Sport added: “Jimmy Hill was an iconic and unique figure and we are all deeply saddened by the news”.

Jimmy is credited with being a pioneer of model football having lifted a ban on media interviews, introducing the first electronic scoreboard in 1964 and leading the way for the “three points and a win” system used by the Football Association. Footballers and football have so much to thank him for.

Hill will be cremated at a private ceremony and a service for his friends and colleagues will be held in the new year, his agent said.

“He was committed to innovation in every aspect of the game, including broadcasting and always believed supporters came first”.

He led the club the the Division Three championship in 1963-84 and the the Division Two title three years later but he quit the club shortly after before the start of their top-flight campaign.

The BBC’s top man has just said his influence lives on in the way we enjoy football today, and that is certainly true, and not just on television.

After more than three decades at the BBC he joined joined Sky Sports in 1999 to front programmes including Jimmy Hill’s Sunday Supplement.

During that six-year spell at Coventry, he won promotion from the Third and then Second Divisions to lead the team into the top-flight, while also finding time to change the club’s colours to sky blue and write the long-standing club anthem “The Sky Blue Song”.