Haydn Hill

One thing that was typical of the old Dulwich Hamlet players from yesteryear was a reluctance to harp on about their colourful careers, especially to their own children. Several sons of past Hamlet greats have told me that their dads rarely mentioned their footballing days. One of these is Robin Hill, son of HHC Hill, the Dulwich goalkeeper of the 1930s. I corresponded with Robin some years ago when he was considering selling some of his late father’s mementos. “Dad was very reticent about his career and did not speak much about it, possibly because I never inherited his skill or ability.” Having said that, Robin had a very good knowledge of his father’s playing days and was very proud of his achievements.

Haydn Hill joined Dulwich on trial in December 1936, just a few months after competing for Great Britain in the Berlin Olympic Games. The British football team were knocked out in the 2nd Round by Poland.

Despite this disappointment on the field, Hill always said that his greatest triumph on that trip was to have stood on Ribbentrop’s foot at a reception. Joachim Von Ribbentrop was Hitler’s Foreign Minister and was hanged for his war crimes following the Nuremburg trials.

Twelve months before arriving at Dulwich Haydn Hill was playing in the English First Division, where he made a handful of appearances for Sheffield Wednesday between April and December 1935. Wednesday won the FA Cup that year and Hill was the understudy to Jack Brown. Were it not for Brown’s recovery from injury just days before the final, Hill would have been in the line-up at Wembley.

It took just three games in the Hamlet Reserves before he secured the goalkeeper’s position in the first team, making his debut in January 1937. He quickly began to display all the brilliance which had gained him five Amateur Caps while with Sheffield University, Sheffield Wednesday, Yorkshire Amateurs and Corinthian. He soon became a great favourite at Champion Hill.

Hill added a further three England caps during his spell at Dulwich, including the England v Scotland international at Champion Hill in March 1937. This match, in front of his own supporters, took place just weeks before the Hamlet’s fourth Amateur Cup Final victory, and must have been a very proud moment.

The programme for the England Scotland game states that Hill was the first Hamlet player transferred from another Isthmian club – he had played once only for the Casuals in an emergency.

After his eighteen games for Dulwich in the second half of the 1936/37 season, Hill made a further sixty odd appearances for the club in the years leading up to the war. His honours included winners’ medals in the FA Amateur Cup and the London Senior Cup. He was then elected by his fellow players to captain the side for the short-lived 1039/40 season.

Oddly, he kept goal in a solitary appearance for Weymouth FC in September 1937 in a Western League Championship match against Swindon Town Reserves.

Haydn Hill was also quite adept facing a cricket ball. After the war he was opening bat for Weymouth Cricket Club – where he eventually rose to the position of President – and he also made a small number of Minor Counties Championship appearances for Dorset between 1948 and 1952.

By the 1960s Hill was assisting Frank O'Farrell, the manager of Weymouth FC, then of the Southern League, and was joint manager of the club’s Colts side. When O’Farrell left for Torquay United in 1965 Hill went with him continuing in a training and scouting role.

Hill’s day job was as a schoolmaster teaching mathematics at Weymouth Grammar School, where he finished his career as Senior Master. But it seems he was always ready to put aside his slide rule and Pythagoras’s Theorem for a match. Robin Hill told me, “He spent a lot of his spare time involved with teaching schoolkids football skills, and was, I think, Chairman of the Conference of English Schools FA. They ran week long coaching courses at Skegness in the Easter holidays. One name I remember that came through was Liverpool’s Steve Heighway.”

Haydn Hill passed away on 3 November 1992, having suffered a heart attack.

Note: Haydn Hill’s first name is often spelled in a variety of ways, but the correct way is the same as that of the classical music composer.

Original article from HH19 Autumn 2007

Copyright © Jack McInroy