Gordon Hill (referee)
| Full name | Gordon W Hill | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Born |
8 July 1928 Bolton, Lancashire, England |
||
| Other occupation | Teacher | ||
| Domestic | |||
| Years | League | Role | |
| 1960–1966 | Football League | Linesman | |
| 1966–1975 | Football League | Referee | |
Gordon W. Hill (born 8 July 1928) is an English former football referee in the Football League. He originally comes from Bolton, Lancashire.
In his early years he attended St. Simon and St Jude’s C of E School, Great Lever in Bolton. He later moved to Waterfoot, Rossendale in Lancashire and attended Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School from 1936. Upon leaving school in 1946, he moved to London to train as a teacher for two years. He returned to Lancashire to take up his teaching career, briefly, in Bacup. After an 18-month spell of compulsory National Service, he taught in Bury from 1950 to 1955, then returned to teach in Bacup until 1960, and subsequently moved to a post in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, until his re-location to Leicester in 1966. Here he became the first headteacher of the new Stafford Leys Country Primary School in Leicester Forest East before taking up a similar post at Mount Grace High School in the nearby town of Hinckley. He remaining at Mount Grace until he relocated to take up a teaching post in Plymouth, Michigan in the USA in 1975. His liberal approach to refereeing was also evident in his approach to teaching where he was happy to be called progressive in his approach.
Hill played amateur football and trained as a coach, but injury caused him to give up playing. In 1952 he started refereeing on local parks around Bacup and over the next few years made good progress. Whilst teaching in Scunthorpe in 1960, he became a Football League linesman.
He spent six years on the line before progressing to the list of Football League referees. Shortly after, he moved to Leicester, and remained there for the rest of his refereeing career. He quickly established himself and on 14 March 1970 took charge of the FA Cup semi-final between Chelsea (the eventual Cup winners) and Watford at White Hart Lane. He became a regular face in top division football and was renowned for his "player-centred" approach. Hill aimed to build closer relationships with players, and wanted to distance himself from the traditional image of the referee as an aloof disciplinarian. This approach appears to have been well regarded by players, managers and fans but did not always find favour with the authorities. Particular tensions arose early in the 1971–72 season, when the League was instigating a disciplinary crackdown, and this made the lenient and individualistic Hill uneasy.
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