In his acclaimed book ‘Inverting the Pyramid’ football writer Jonathan Wilson declares a former Celtic coach as the “..most influential football coach there has ever been”.
The most obvious candidate for such a plaudit would of course be Jock Stein – the man who made 11 Scotsmen the champions of Europe and in the process destroyed the hated Catenaccio But Wilson’s accolade is bestowed not on Big Jock, but rather a man whose fleeting stay at Parkhead means he remains a relatively unknown figure to many Celtic fans.
That man is Jimmy Hogan. Hogan’s story is a fascinating one and it is a tale which leaves Hoops fans wondering what might have been.
Playing Career
Born in Nelson, Lancashire in 1882, Hogan’s upbringing was heavily influenced by the faith and values of his Irish Catholic family. After originally contemplating joining the priesthood Hogan eventually embarked upon a career in football when in 1902 he joined Rochdale Town.
A gifted inside forward Jimmy’s playing career would take him to Burnley, Fulham, Swindon and Bolton Wanderers. It was during this time that Hogan developed an obsession about how players and teams could improve their play. A deep thinker on the game, and with an eye for detail, Jimmy was driven by a deep-rooted urge for self-improvement. He constantly questioned what he could do to improve his own game and he left no stone unturned in his quest to fine tune his performance.
Hogan examined every aspect of his play, how he struck a ball, his stance, his positioning, his timing. But his efforts resulted only in frustration and isolation. Trainers, managers and Jimmy’s fellow players saw no value to Hogan’s obsessions. For them football was a game of brute force. Training was almost exclusively based on running and strength. The idea of working with the ball was frowned upon and the physicality of the game meant that for most the subtleties of technique were an afterthought.
Netherlands
A summer tour to the Netherlands with Bolton in 1910 allowed Hogan to experience football on the continent for the first time. Although the opponents he faced were significantly short of the standard in Britain, Jimmy recognised how the Dutch were eager to advance their game.
Hogan was desperate to get involved in coaching and thanks to his connections in the game Jimmy returned to the Netherlands soon afterwards having been offered the chance to work with Dordrecht – a side Bolton had thrashed 10-0 on that summer tour. Compared to Britain the Netherland’s was a young football nation, a country still carving out its identity in this increasingly global game. It’s players were amateurs eager to absorb the new ideas and fresh thinking so readily dismissed by the conservative professionals back in Britain.
Hogan – still aged only 28 – revelled in his new environment. Although fitness was important to Jimmy, technique was the vital ingredient to his new football. He introduced ball work into drills whenever he could and there was no facet of the game too miniscule to escape Hogan’s attention. He would hold classroom sessions where a blackboard would be used to illustrate tactics, positioning and movement.
Thanks to Jimmy amateur footballers in the Netherlands were being exposed to the sort of advanced coaching that would not be seen in the UK for at least another generation.
Jimmy’s stay in the Netherlands lasted two years. During that time he was invited to coach the Dutch national side and he led them to a 2-1 victory over Germany. His methods would live on long after his departure with countless players, coaches and clubs inspired by Hogan’s approach to the game. After his time in the Netherland’s Hogan played another season for Bolton but was now desperate for full-time coaching work.
Austria
Another emerging football nation, Austria, had no shortage of quality players. But their talent was raw and ragged. Hugo Meisl, head of the Austrian Football Federation, needed someone with the ideas and vision to ensure the undoubted potential of his homeland was fulfilled. On the recommendation of international referee James Howcroft – a friend of Jimmy’s – Hogan was handed the task of working with Vienna’s club sides and preparing the country for the immediate challenge of the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.
Austria would be elimated in the quarter-finals at the Olympics but the progress made under Hogan’s pioneering approach to football had impressed Mesil.
Back in his native England teams still employed a kick and rush style of play, but Jimmy preferred the short passing game that had originally emerged in Scotland. It was this “Scottish style” which was the template for his teams. Hogan’s approach to football was certainly more pleasing on the eye than the robust and direct English game. But his approach was rooted in pragmatism rather than aesthetics. He saw possession as the key to victory and the key to possession was fluid movement and a short, swift and precise passing game.
To achieve this Jimmy taught players to master the ball, to be comfortable in possession, to exploit space. From Jimmy’s ideas would emerge the football blueprint for some of the most lauded sides in football history. Knowing other European countries were now eager to secure Hogan’s services, Mesil asked the Lancastrian to lead Austria to the 1916 Olympics in Berlin.
Coaching the top Viennese clubs and the Olympic squad, Hogan’s vision of football spread across Austria and with it came a new confidence that they were now a match for any opponent. Olympic gold was not an unrealistic dream. But football would soon become an irrelevance as the horrors of the First World War enveloped the continent.
Hungary
The Olympics were cancelled and while Hogan was able to negotiate safe passage for his family back to England, he was arrested. The coach was barred from returning to Britain and was to be sent to an internment camp. However Jimmy’s friends persuaded the Austrian authorities to allow him to move to Hungary where he would coach MTK Budapest.
In Hungary Hogan came under close supervision from the authorities and had to report to the police every day. But his love for football remained and in difficult circumstances he shaped MTK into a team that enthralled a nation. Playing a brand of exquisite flowing football, Jimmy guided his team to back to back league titles in 1917 and 1918 before he eventually headed back to Britain following the conclusion of the war.
In his absence MTK would go on to dominate Hungarian football for the next decade. Meanwhile virtually every other club, coach and player adopted Hogan’s revolutionary philosophy on football.
Back in England and out of football Hogan was struggling to scrape a living during the austere inter-war years. He was advised by a friend to approach the FA who had a support fund for ex-footballers who had fallen on hard times after the war. With his family close to poverty he travelled to London in the hope of some financial assistance. But the FA did not look kindly on Hogan. Through no fault of his own Jimmy had been forced to remain in Austria and Hungary for the duration of the war. Although a helpless hostage of circumstance, Hogan was viewed by the FA as little more than a deserter and a traitor.
His request for financial support was scornfully refused. Instead FA secretary Francis Wall tossed him a pair of khaki socks and sneered: “The boys on the frontline were grateful for these”.
Distraught and disgusted by his treatment, Hogan headed to Europe once more. He originally moved to Switzerland where he spent several years with Young Boys Berne. He then returned to Hungary and MTK before joining SC Dresden in Germany. His ideas on the game hugely impressed the Germans and Hogan then toured the country on lecture tours, sharing his philosophy with players and coaches.
By the early 1930s Hogan had returned to Austria to assist Hugo Meisl with the national side. World Cup semi-finalists in 1934, the Austrian’s thrilled football fans for nearly a decade with the side christened the Wunderteam. Austria’s movement and slick passing game was a delight to watch. Fast and fluid, their performances were infused with the DNA of Jimmy Hogan.
However, with the politics of Europe becoming increasingly unsettled Jimmy would return to England. He would have spells at Fulham and Aston Villa where his methods met with resistance and mixed results. By the late 1940s Hogan was in his mid 60s and coaching youngsters. But just as it seemed his days working at the highest level were over, Celtic came calling.
Celtic
The Hoops were struggling to climb out of their self-inflicted wartime slumber. Flirtation with relegation in season 1947-48 alerted chairman Robert Kelly to the urgent need for radical attention. Kelly had long admired the innovative Hogan and identified him as the man capable of reviving the Parkhead club. Under Kelly’s plan Jimmy McGrory would remain his compliant managerial figurehead while Hogan would work the players on the training field.
Hogan arrived in Glasgow in the summer of 1948 and was introduced to the players at a golf day at Uddingston. The following day Hogan called together the squad and gave a speech interspersed with poetry and literary quotes which outlined his vision for the resurrection of this great club.
It was to be a vision unfulfilled. Jimmy got the team working with the ball and he preached to them the importance of getting the small details right. He’d put forward his philosophy with phrases such as “keep the high balls low” and “Keep the ball on the deck – it won’t hurt the grass”. Day after day he worked on technique, passing and movement and constantly introduced fresh ideas to a team in urgent need of them.
But too many senior players thought they knew best. Oblivious to their own part in Celtic’s mediocrity they treated Hogan’s training methods with cynicism and contempt.
Jimmy persevered and while his brief stay at Celtic was not exactly trophy-ladden he earned huge respect from the younger Celts, some of whom would be inspired by their short time with Hogan. Charlie Tully – known for a dislike of tedious training runs – lapped up Hogan’s ideas and philosophy. Tommy Docherty – a future managerial icon – described Hogan as: “The finest coach the world had ever known”.
Another of Hogan’s Celtic pupils, Jimmy Sirrel, would became a managerial legend at Notts County while Alec Boden would state: “By god, did Jimmy Hogan know football”. But while Hogan’s training regime, tactics and footballing ideas on the pitch were lauded his methods off the field frequently raised eyebrows.
Jimmy’s pre-match ritual saw him perform a brief prayer over keeper Willie Miller’s hands before he went around the dressing room and – irrespective of the player’s religion – used his thumb to mark the sign of the cross on their forehead. Even at a club with Celtic’s traditions Jimmy’s enthusiastic Catholicism was viewed as perhaps a little too ostentatious.
In Jimmy’s two seasons at Celtic Park the club would pick up a solitary Glasgow Cup but there had been a distinct improvement in both league performance and style. Had he arrived a decade or so earlier, or if the more experienced players had been more receptive to his methods, Hogan’s place in Celtic history may well have been very different.
But while a mere footnote in the Celtic story, Jimmy’s place in wider football history is assured.
Post-Celtic
In November 1953 – just a few years after his departure from Parkhead – Jimmy was the special guest of the Hungarian FA at a foggy Wembley stadium. Jimmy watched the visitors destroy their hosts 6-3 with a sublime performance which delivered a wrecking ball to the superiority complex engrained within English football.
When Sandor Barcs, president of the Hungarian FA, was asked by journalists about the secret of hungary’s success he replied: “Jimmy Hogan taught us everything we know about football”. Gustav Seb, Hungary coach, added: “We played football as Jimmy Hogan taught us. When our football history is told, his name should be written in gold letters“.
Jimmy passed away in 1974 aged 91. Soon afterwards his son received a letter from the German Football Federation. In it Hogan was hailed as “the father of modern football in Germany”.
Hearing these plaudits and seeing the huge influence Hogan had on the development of football it is difficult for Celtic fans not to look at his brief time in Glasgow and think – “Right Man, Wrong Time“.