Career
He famously wore white football boots. He came into the Wolves team during the 1961-1962 season when he managed 16 appearances, scoring 5 times. The following season he was a first choice in the wide left position, from where he netted 19 times, making him their leading goalscorer.
His goalscoring ability soon attracted interest from other clubs and he signed for Nottingham Forest in January 1964.
He appeared 112 times for Forest, scoring 24 times during 4 seasons at the City Ground. He spent eight seasons with the Rams, which coincided with the golden period in the club"s history, winning promotion to the top flight as Second Division champions in 1968-1969 and then winning the league championship in both 1971-1972 and 1974-1975.
He departed in 1975 after 253 appearances and 63 goals for Derby. Whilst at Derby he was universally and affectionately known, amongst the fans by his nickname 'Gladys' which stemmed from his aforementioned white boots and curly blonde perm, along with his elegant and non-aggressive playing style.
Hinton first played for the Dallas Tornado for a season, before moving to the Vancouver Whitecaps to close out his playing career.
At age 36 he retired with a bang, by setting an NASL single-season record with 30 assists in 1978. Having settled in North America, Hinton managed only Canadian and American teams, his biggest successes were with the Seattle Sounders (66 games, 45 wins) and later on the Tacoma Stars (87 games, 69 wins). Hinton also spent a number of years coaching youth soccer in the Puget Sound area of Washington state and became known as "Mr.
Soccer" in the area.
He coached the U13-18 Crossfire Sounders boys team (now the Crossfire Premier Soccer Club, including boys and girls teams) from 1992–1997. After retiring from coaching, Hinton turned to a career in real estate, while remaining involved in youth soccer. He now works as a local broadcast analyst for Seattle Sounders.
On 18 November 2014 Hinton tweeted that his bladder cancer had returned and that he would have major surgery on 5 January 2015.
A few week later he tweeted that the pathology results showed him to be "clear.".