TODAY, we tell the story of how football coach Jimmy Hogan, born in Nelson, became recognised as one of the founders of modern football.

It comes in a new book, by Keith Baker and follows our tale last week of the Charnock brothers of Chorley, credited with founding Dynamo Moscow.

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Jimmy’s tactics were proved in 1953, when Hungary destroyed England 6-3, on home soil at Wembley and the brilliance of their play had shocked the 100,000 strong spectators as much as the scoreline.

It didn’t come as a surprise to the 70-year-old sitting in the stands though – Jimmy had spent much of his life coaching abroad and had taught the Hungarian players everything they knew about football.

Jimmy was born in 1882, into an Irish Catholic family of 11 children. His parents worked in the mills in Nelson and he went to St Joseph’s Catholic primary and then, after moving to Burnley, St Mary Magdalene’s.

His father James hoped he would enter the priesthood and Jimmy continued his education at St Bede’s College in Manchester, where he excelled in sport and seriously began to consider a career as a footballer.

Just before his 18th birthday, he signed as a semi professional for Nelson FC, in the Lancashire Combination, but left after a year, with pay a major contention.

Small in stature and a useful inside right, he attributed his excellent ball control to playing in clogs on the cinders of Burnley’s tough backstreets and difficult waste grounds.

Said Keith: “Though he did not reach the heights as a player, he had the right character for a coach – meticulous, determined and with an obsessive eye for detail.

“Jimmy was a visionary, a deep thinker, who formed clear ideas of how the game should be played.”

Nicknamed ‘the parson’ – he was still deeply religious and never swore – he joined Burnley in 1903, in the Second Division of the Football League, and married Evelyn Coates, who he had known at junior school.

After a couple of seasons with the Clarets, he complained of being undervalued and demanded the minimum £4 a week wage.

When it wasn’t forthcoming, former Burnley manager Harry Bradshaw persuaded Hogan to move to Fulham in 1905, at the age of 23.

Five years later, he moved overseas and began to coach in the Netherlands, where no aspect of the game escaped his attention, then leaving for Austria in 1912, where the players soon warmed to his methods.

Jimmy was in Vienna when the First World War broke out and received assurances that it was safe for him to stay – but he was arrested, imprisoned and then released.

His wife and two children were allowed to come home in 1915 and a year later, strings were pulled for Jimmy to become coach of MTK in Budapest. In 1926 he was offered a lucrative contract by the Central German Football Association and he toured the country with football demonstrations which were so popular they became more like a travelling show.

He showed his tactics to more than 5,000 German players, before being given the task of restoring the fortunes of Dresden sports club, from 1928 to 1932.

Then it was back to Austria and the national team – a move which has led to Jimmy, along with manager Hugo Meisl, today being recognised as ‘the godfathers of total football’.

He gave up coaching in 1959, aged 77 and returned to live in Burnley.

On his death in 1974, aged 91, tributes poured in from Europe, with the head of the German FA describing him as ‘the father of football in modern Germany’.

  • Fathers of Football, by Keith Baker and published by Pitch Publishing, costs £12.99 and is available from Amazon and all good bookshops.