Gary Lineker leads tributes to "extraordinary man" Jimmy Hill

Hill died at the age of 87 following a long battle against Alzheimer's disease, his agent announced on Saturday morning.

After starting his career at Brentford in 1949, where he made 87 appearances, Hill moved to Fulham three years later, scoring 52 goals in close to 300 games for the Cottagers.

He became the chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association in 1957, where he would successfully campaign for the abolition of the £20-a-week maximum wage and to introduce freedom of contract.

After his retirement at the age of 33 in 1961, Hill took his only managerial role at Coventry and changed the club's strip colour to sky blue, also i ntroducing the first-ever colour match programme in English football.

He led Coventry to the Division Three championship in 1963-64 and the Division Two title three years later, before quitting the club shortly before the start of their top-flight campaign.

Hill was the Head of Sport at ITV between 1968 and 1972, a spell which including fronting the coverage of the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. He moved to the BBC in 1973 where he became the host of Match of the Day before Des Lynam took over the reins in 1989, and would make more than 600 appearances on the show as both a presenter and analyst.

Off the pitch, Hill had also successfully lobbied for the introduction of the three-points-for-a-win system in 1981 and also fought for the right for clubs to wear sponsors' logos on their shirts, all of which now seem commonplace in the modern game.

Former England striker Lineker now fronts the flagship BBC show on Saturday night and is in no doubt of the legacy which Hill left the sport he loved.

Lineker told the BBC: "He had such an extraordinary life, he was an extraordinary man. He was a football man through and through.

"In my first ever presenting role at the European Championship in 1996 I was terribly nervous but Jimmy helped relax me. He was terribly magnanimous and kind.

"My first experience of TV was actually at the 1986 World Cup, when I came in for the final, and he was the first person to congratulate me on winning the golden boot when Diego Maradona didn't score. He was always switched on in that way.

"He became a friend and we would sometimes play golf together. He was a great, great man."

Commentator John Motson, who worked with Hill at the BBC, described him on Radio 5 Live as ''an instigator, an innovator and most of all an inspiration''.

''He had a great personality, he was irrepressible, good humoured, great company, what more can you say about the man?,'' Motson added.

Hill will be cremated at a private ceremony.

A service for his friends and colleagues will be held in the new year, his agent said.

Football Association chairman Greg Dyke said he was ''very saddened'' by the news.

''What was remarkable about Jimmy was that he went on to have so many different careers,'' he said on www.thefa.com.

''He was a successful player, a great manager at Coventry and changed the game as chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association - including the scrapping of the £20 maximum wage.

''He became a brilliant broadcaster, first at London Weekend Television and then at the BBC and helped transform the way we covered football.

''He was a popular presenter, a hugely influential figure and, such was his style, he was loved by millions - even among those who didn't follow football."

PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor added his condolences: ''He was football's equivalent of Christopher Columbus, a great explorer of ideas.''

Current Sky Blues boss Tony Mowbray hailed Hill as a "visionary".

''He could see the future almost and the modern-day footballer has a lot to thank him for and this football club of course is in debt many, many times over for the things he brought to the club," Mowbray said.

Fulham, for whom he played between 1952 and 1961, said on Twitter: ''Jimmy's contributions to the Club, on and off the field, were immeasurable.''