JIMMY HINCH

Full Name: James Anthony Hinch

Born: 08 November 1947

Came from: Tranmere Rovers   Went to: Hereford United

First game: 13 February 1971   Last game: 08 September 1973

Appearances: 117 (112/5)   Goals: 30

Born in Sheffield and a forward, he was playing in local leagues, before being signed by ambitious Welsh League side Porthmadog, who had extended their search radius to build a competitive team. He had only been 5ft 5″ when he left school, where he had played as a half-back. Whist living in his home town, ahead of his move to Wales, he served a five-year apprenticeship as a pattern-maker in the dyeing trade.

Having grown into the 6ft 2" forward he would be remembered as, his goals in the Welsh League bought him to the attention of Football League sides and he was spotted by Tranmere Rovers, who paid a nominal fee to sign him in 1969, on his first professional contract. Despite an ungainly style and the late start to his professional career, he became an effective forward with a decent goalscoring record, albeit prone to inconsistency.

His stay at Prenton Park was brief, from 1969-1971 and in that time he made 39 appearances and scored 10 goals, before moving to Home Park under Ellis Stuttard in February 1971. The move was a player-exchange deal with Fred Molyneux, which enabled Molyneux to return to his native Wirral. Hinch became a first team regular for the next two-and-a-half years and later played under Tony Waiters. Initially his style may have jarred, particularly as it was so different to that of the man he replaced, Mike Bickle, though he managed to score six goals in his first season. HIs link up play with Derek Rickard in the 1971-72 season was telling, he doubled his goal tally to 12 and finished just two behind Rickard himself, in the goalscoring charts. He made double figures again the following season, hitting 10 and missed just one league game. However, with the team struggling early in the 1973-74 season, he was dropped in order to give a debut to a young Paul Mariner. The rest, as they say, is history.

Unable to dislodge Mariner, after just over three seasons at Home Park he was sold to Hereford United in late 1973, having played 117 times and scored 30 goals for the club. At Edgar Street, he played 27 times and scored seven goals in the remainder of the 1973-74 season. In the summer of 1974, he then moved up a league with a York City side which had just won promotion to the Second Division.

During his time at Bootham Crescent, he went on loan to Fourth Division Southport during the March and April of the 1974-75 season, playing seven times and scoring twice. He also spent the summers of 1976 and 1977 on loan during the English close season, to Los Angeles Skyhawks of the American Soccer League (ASL). The ASL was a name given to several iterations of the second tier in American football but at the time had been expanded and was being run as a rival to the burgeoning North American Soccer League (NASL). Skyhawks won the ASL in 1976 with Hinch ending up joint top-scorer on 13 goals and being named Most Valuable Player (MVP) in the ASL for 1976. In his two summers with the club, he played 37 times and scored 24 goals

Returning to England, York sold him to Sheffield Wednesday for the start of the 1977-78 season. In total he had played 68 times for the Minstermen and scored 12 goals in his three years at the club. At Hillsborough, he played only once before a move to Barnsley for the remainder of that season, playing 12 times and scoring four goals.

At the end of that season Barnsley sold the remainder of his contract enabling him to return to the States, where he ended his career playing for the California Surf of the NASL, spending the 1979 and 1980 seasons with the club, playing 17 times, scoring twice.

After finishing his career, he remained living in California, in Santa Ana, where he ran a highly successful finance, insurance and property business under a more US-friendly name of 'James A. Hinch'. He also taught soccer in a local college and also set up a US ‘Soccer Camp’, with fellow Sheffielder, and former York, Hereford, Southport and Skyhawks team-mate, Paul Taylor.

In his later years he moved to live in the south of France with his Plymouth-born wife and has been an match-day guest for Forever Green (the former players' association at Home Park) and he also took part in the 2019 reunion for Tony Waiters.