After having a run in Everton Reserves, Hills was dispatched to The Vetch were he spent two months on loan to Swansea City, and made a good impression. When he came back, Dave Watson had him on the subs bench before letting him start what was to be his one and only full game for Everton – at home to Chelsea.
Soon after the start of the 1997-98 season, he was back at The Vetch for another loan period, scoring a nice goal in his first match. As Jan Mobly says:
"I was obviously pleased with the performance of John Hills in his first game back in a Swansea shirt. He took time coming to terms with the pace of the game, but once he got into it he proved once again what a good player he is. And what a goal."
Back at Everton over the winter of 1997, the closest Hills got to a first-team match was the subs bench for the FA Cup 3rd Round tie against Newcastle United. After going out on loan in January 1998, this time to his old club in Blackpool, John Hills finally rejoined them at a knockdown price of £60,000. He can be marked down as a casualty of the managerial change in which Howard Kendall progressively whittled away at the list of players he had inherited from Joe Royle.
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