Hilaire: Vince Mark (Vince)

1988-1990 (Player Details)

Right Wing

Born: Forest Hill, London: 10-10-1959

Debut: Oxford United (h): 27-08-1988

5’6” 10st (1988)

Hilaire kicked off his career as an apprentice with Crystal Palace, turning professional on 26th October 1976. Vince was a supremely talented winger who came to the fore in Palace's great FA Youth Cup winning side of 1977 before breaking into the first team during the 1977-78 season, while helping the club to retain the Youth Cup at the same time. An England Youth International, he was often tipped as a future full international but the nearest he got was nine under-twenty-one caps and an England “B” appearance. He made his Palace debut as a seventeen-year-old, in a 2-3 defeat at Sincil bank by Lincoln City on 2nd March 1977. He soon amassed eight England Under-Eighteen caps, making his debut on 19th May 1977 in a 1-0 win in Lokeren against host nation Belgium in the 1977 UEFA competition and this was quickly followed by two more, the first two days later as England drew 0-0 at Turnhout with Iceland and two days after that 0-0 with Greece in Beveren. There were two more in the 1978 UEFA Qualifiers, both against France, on 8th February 1978 in a 3-1 home win at Selhurst Park, and on 1st March 1978 in a 0-0 away draw at Gagny. His other three caps came in the 1978 UEFA competition when England drew with 1-1 with Turkey at Wodzislaw on 5th May 1978, beat Spain 1-0 two days later in Bukowno, but lost to host nation Poland 2-0 in Chorzow, just two days after that. After just three games in the 1976-77 season he played thirty games in 1977-78, scoring twice, as he rose to prominence as one of the leading lights in a Palace team seemingly destined for great things in the early eighties, after gaining promotion from Division Three in 1976-77. He was quick, with wonderful balance and control, Hilaire was seen at his best at Selhurst Park as Palace won the Division Two championship in 1978-79 scoring six goals in thirty-one appearances. In Division One he was subject to a lot of dubious challenges that would not have been tolerated in the modern game but he still an ever-present, and scored five goals in 1979-80. He gained his England "B" cap when they played New Zealand "A" on 15th October 1979 at Leyton Orient's Brisbane Road and celebrated by scoring England's third goal in the sixty-second minute as they ran out 4-1 winners. He won the supporters player of the year in 1978-79 and repeated the acclaim in the following season of 1979-80. It was in that year that he broke into the England Under-Twenty-One team in the 1980 European Championship qualifiers and on 20th November 1979 he made his debut in a 5-0 home win over Bulgaria at Filbert Street, Leicester, when he scored England's second goal in the twenty-fifth minute. his second cap came on 12th February 1980 in the Quarter Finals when England beat Scotland 2-1 at Highfield Road, Coventry in the first leg and he came on as a sixty-third minute substitute for Garth Crooks on 4th March 1980 as the second leg finished in a 0-0 stalemate at Pittodrie, Aberdeen. He played in both legs of the Semi-Finals against East Germany as England went down in both legs, by 1-2 at Bramall Lane, Sheffield on 16th April 1980 and 0-1 in the second Leg in Jena on 23rd April 1980, when Clive Allen replaced him. His next cap came on 9th September 1980 in a friedly at the Dell, Southampton when Norway were beaten 3-0. He played twice in the European Championships of 1980-82, when he was in the England team that went down 0-4 to Roumania in Ploesti on 14th October 1980 and came on as a sixtieth minute replacement for Remi Mosesas England put Switzerland to the sword to the tune of 5-0 at Portman Road, Ipswich on 18th November 1980, which brought his caps to eight. After Palace's relegation in 1980-81 Hilaire remained at the club for a further three seasons and he was a player who was capable of winning matches with a moment of sublime skill. One perfect illustration of this was at Selhurst Park in 1984 when, having been reduced to nine men, Hilaire was pushed up front on his own where he proceeded to win a penalty duly converted by Peter Nicholas to secure a 1-0 victory. He also played one summer season in the NASL with the San Jose Earthquakes in 1982, scoring three goals in twenty-two games and also complted his collection of Under-Twenty-One caps, when he gained his ninth as England drew with Poland 2-2 at Upton Park on 7th April 1982, when he came on to replace Gary Bannister. He clocked up two hundred and fifty-five League games for Palace, with sixteen being as a substitute, and two hundred and ninety-three in total. He scored twenty-nine League goals and thirty-six in total, before a move to Luton Town on 18th July 1984, but he quickly moved to oin Alan Ball's Portsmouth for £100,000 in November 1984, after just six appearances for the Bedfordshire team. Hilaire was a key member of the Pompey team that won promotion from Division Two in 1986-87, and he was rewarded by being given a place in the PFA Division Two team of the year. He played one hundred and sixty-eight times for Pompey, one hundred and forty-six in the League, two being from the bench, and twenty-two in the Cups, twelve in the League Cup and ten in the F.A. Cup, scoring twenty-six goals, all in the League. A tricky winger, he cost Leeds United £190,000 in July 1988, a fee settled by tribunal after Leeds had offered £70,000 for a player that Portsmouth valued at £270,000. Signed by Billy Bremner, he was virtually ever-present on the left-wing in his first season, but with the advent of Howard Wilkinson, he was unable to make much impression with Leeds during the 1989-90 season, as first John Hendrie, then Andy Williams and finally Gary Speed, kept him out of the first team. Under Wilkinson, the genial entertainer who possessed the skills and trickery to open up the tightest defence also showed his introvert side as he shunned the physical endeavour needed to battle the brutish defences of the Second Division. In the physical games played at a high tempo he chose to avoid the necessary foraging required and allowed the games to pass him by. He had loan spells with Stoke City in November 1989, where he played five times and scored once, and Charlton Athletic in April 1990, but did not play a League game for them. Eventually he joined Stoke City on a free-transfer in November 1990, where he made ten appearances and scored twice, before moving to Exeter City the following September, where he again played under another of his former Managers in Alan Ball. He scored four goals in thirty-three appearances before he left in June 1992. He then joined Waterlooville as player-coach resigning in 1994 and joined Bognor Regis in November of that year. After working for Sky and BBC as a pundit, he then worked for a Cable Television Company in Prtsmouth and did local radio commentary on Portsmouth games, was on the Pompey match-day hospitality staff and is a pundit on Quay Radio in Portsmouth.