Jimmy Hogan

After leaving school, Jimmy Hogan was a Lancashire cotton weaver, like his father. He started his football career with his hometown team Nelson in 1900, and subsequently played for Rochdale, Burnley, Fulham Swindon Town, and Bolton Wanderers, where he ended his playing career in 1913.

Having had a brief spell in coaching shortly before the end of his playing days in The Netherlands and Austria, Hogan returned to Europe after “hanging up his boots” and coached AS Wiener of Austria. Hogan spent more than 21 years coaching on the continent at other teams in Hungary, Switzerland, Germany, and France. He returned to England in 1934 and took charge at Fulham but returned to Austria to take charge of the national team at the 1936 Olympics. He had already assisted the legendary Austrian Hugo Miesl with coaching prior to the 1912 Olympics, but now in 1936, under Hogan, Austria returned from Berlin with the silver medal. After the Olympics he joined the recently relegated Aston Villa but got them back into the first division within two years.

After Wold War II Hogan then had two spells coaching at Brentford between 1947-49 before a stint at Glasgow Celtic in 1950, where he was coach to the then manager Jimmy McGrory, but the senior players were not interested in Hogan’s style of play. However, the junior players were, and one who benefitted from the experience was the future Manchester United and Scotland manager Tommy Docherty. After the Celtic experience, Hogan retired after nearly 50 years as a player, coach and manager.

Although Hogan was little known in Britain, he was revered across Europe and rightly took credit for the rise in standards of the game in Austria, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and Hungary. After Hungary trounced England 6-3 at Wembley in 1953 the Magyars were quick to publicly praise the lessons taught to them by Hogan several years earlier.