Jimmy Hogan

Jimmy Hogan is a former player and manager of Fulham. He was with the club as a player from 1905 until 1908 and as manager of the first team from May 1934 until February 1935. Although he did not achieve much as a player, Jimmy would go on to become a revolutionary coach and manager throughout Europe after his retirement from playing.

Before Fulham
Jimmy was born on 16 October 1882 into an Irish Catholic family in Nelson, Lancashire. He was educated at St Mary Magdalene Roman Catholic School; his father hoped he would enter the Priesthood and sent him to study as a Boarder at the Salford Diocesan Junior Seminary St Bede's College, Manchester in September 1896. He graduated at Midsummer 1900 after deciding not to pursue his vocation any further, but was College Head Boy in the 1899-1900 Academic Year.

After leaving school he became a footballer, first playing for Rochdale Belvedere, before spells at Rochdale and Nelson. He joined Burnley in September 1903, then a Second Division team and he went on to make 50 League appearances for the club.

Fulham (1905-1908)
Fulham signed Jimmy in October 1905 and it was only when the club were admitted into the Football League that the club then had to pay Burnley a fee of £100 for the original transfer two years earlier.

He scored 5 goals in 9 games when Fulham retained their Southern League title in 1906-07, but had not played enough matches to win a medal. Throughout his time playing at the club, Jimmy struggled to force his way into the first team, although he was a surprise selection for what would turn out to be his last appearance at Fulham, in the 1908 FA Cup Semi-final tie against Newcastle United at Anfield in which the Whites would lose 6-0.

It is said that it was here at Fulham, that the Scottish trainer Jock Hamilton had influenced Jimmy in his philosophy of the way football should be played. The emphasis of skill over physical power and the versatility of all players being comfortable on the ball was the Scottish way.

After Fulham
Jimmy left to join Swindon Town of the Southern League Division One in the close season of 1908 and got off to a blistering start, scoring 9 goals in as many games. This led to Bolton Wanderers signing him only months later, where he would stay for the remainder of his playing days.

Although he was known for his commitment to self-improvement and the tactical side of the game, it was at Bolton that he began to start thinking seriously about a coaching career. Following a 10-0 victory during a pre-season friendly over Dutch side FC Dordrecht, Jimmy vowed to travel over to Holland to"teach those fellows how to play properly".

Before Fulham
Already a coach before he finished playing for Bolton Wanderers, Jimmy set about travelling Europe teaching his methods of football to the clubs whom he worked with. His main teachings to the Europeans were that of ball control and was more of a technical coach than a tactical coach at this time.

He first travelled to Holland, where he signed a two-year contract with the club he had just played against, FC Dordrecht. So impressed were the Dutch that they recruited him to manage a game in October 1910 against Germany, which he won 2-1.

He would continue playing for Bolton until 1913, though he began searching for full-time coaching work before this. Through his brief work in Holland, he was put in touch with Hugo Meisl, then the head of the Austrian FA who invited him out to Vienna in order to work with the Austrian national team in order to prepare for the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Meisl was impressed by his work ethic and asked him to manage the national team full-time, as well as Vienna's local clubs, to which Jimmy gladly accepted.

He improved the Austrian's but his work was ground to a halt due to the outbreak of the First World War. This was initially a bad situation for Jimmy as he and his family were then living in Austria at the time. He was arrested as an enemy alien but was spared from being sent to an internment camp. Baron Dirstay, an Englishman who was vice-President for Hungarian team MTK, heard about Jimmy's plight and offered him a job to manage the side. And so, he was separated from his family and sent to Hungary to coach in Budapest, though he had to register every day with the police. A very young Hungarian team absorbed his teachings despite the fact they were often called away to fight. Jimmy’s methods brought success to MTK as they won the league in both 1917 and 1918.

Once the war was over in 1918, he was allowed to travel back home and be reunited with his family, where upon arrival he was treated in no glowing terms by the Football Association and was seen as a traitor. Jimmy may have been given work to do in Hungary but he was not paid handsomely for the task and was destitute by the time he returned home. The FA were offering compensation of £200 to those who had suffered financially during the war, but the FA secretary Frederick Wall would refuse to offer this compensation to Jimmy on the basis of the latter's perceived co-operation with the Central Powers during the war. Instead, Wall was reported to have offered him three pairs of khaki socks along with the remark "We sent these to the boys at the front and they were grateful".

He was clearly not going to be accepted in England during this time and so returned to Europe, this time to Switzerland where he secured work as a coach for both Young Boys and the Swiss national team. He stayed in Switzerland until 1925, also working with FC Lausanne and also managing the national team for a brief period in 1924. He moved back to Hungary and managed MTK (now under the name FC Hungaria) for the 1925-26 season.

In 1926, the German FA offered Jimmy work; his duties involved touring the country giving lectures to collected dignitaries, players and coaches in the hope that he could inspire and coach an entire philosophy onto the footballing community. And so, despite speaking minimal German but being required to deliver his talks in the native tongue, he accepted. His presentations did not go well and were initially treated with a level of scepticism, and his lack of fluency in the language caused some barriers with the message he was trying to get across. Eventually, his physical demonstrations with the ball put over the message more clearly. He took up a position at Dresdner SC, where he found a club willing to buy into his way of thinking. During his time with the German outfit, he won the Central German championship three seasons in a row.

The ever-darkening political climate encouraged Jimmy to leave Germany for fear of a repeat of his Vienna arrest nearly twenty years previous. Further stints in Austria, France and Switzerland finally led him back to England, where he was to return to Craven Cottage once more.

Fulham (1934-1935)
Jimmy was re-employed by his former club in May 1934 amid high expectations amongst the Fulham faithful, with his exploits in Europe well-known. He re-signed club favourite Frank Newton which enhanced his reputation further. However, it would go downhill from there as the results were not promising. The consensus was that the established players in the first team refused to get on board with Jimmy's philosophies and were not performing for him in the way they perhaps should have.

Jimmy was effectively sacked before the season was out in March 1935 - he had recently been discharged from hospital following an appendicitus operation on 28 December 1934 and was still recovering when he was informed of the decision by the board on 15 March 1935 that his contract would run out on 1 June. The directors led by John Dean saw out the 1934-35 season in charge of the first team.

After Fulham
Jimmy made one more attempt at making it a success in his home country when he was offered to take the reigns at Aston Villa. This time, he achieved some success, guiding the club back to the First Division following their relegation prior to his arrival. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, he retired from management.

He would return to football as a coach into his latter years however, working for Brentford, Celtic and a return to Aston Villa to coach their youth team until his final retirement at the age of 76.

He passed away on 30 January 1974 at the age of 91, having left his mark on the continent as a pioneer of football coaching.

Bolton Wanderers

 * Second Division
 * Winners (1): 1908-09
 * Runners-up (1): 1910-11

MTK

 * Nemzeti Bajnokság I
 * Winners (3): 1916-17, 1917-18 & 1918-19

Dresdner SC

 * Central German Championship
 * Winners (3): 1928-29, 1929-30 & 1930-31

Aston Villa

 * Second Division
 * Winners (1): 1937-38