Notes
Even in an era before goalkeepers tended
routinely to be giants, Eddie Hopkinson was one of the shortest among
Football League net-minders, but lack of stature did not prevent the
thickset north-easterner from becoming England's finest for a spell during
the late 1950s.
While still in his early twenties, the 5ft
9in Hopkinson collected 14 caps for his country and excelled as Bolton
Wanderers beat Manchester United in the 1958 FA Cup Final. After that,
although he slipped from the international reckoning, he maintained a
resilient, ultra-competitive presence between the club's posts for another
decade, making nearly 600 senior appearances, more than any other Trotter
before or since.
Born in Co Durham, he moved to Royton, Lancashire, with his family as a
boy, and showed early promise as a wing-half for his school team. One day
the team's goalkeeper failed to show up for training, Hopkinson was
pressed into duty as an emergency custodian and he displayed such natural
ability in his new role that within two years he had signed amateur forms
with Oldham Athletic. That was in June 1951 and, during the
following season, still only 16, he made three appearances for the Latics
in the former Third Division South, conceding a total of 10 goals, but
revealing immense potential. Now he faced a choice: take a part-time job
outside the game while continuing with Oldham, or seek his fortune at a
higher level. Hopkinson opted to raise his eyes, enlisting with First
Division Bolton as an amateur in August 1952 and turning professional
three months later.
Thereafter he settled down at Burnden Park to hone his craft, but,
after finishing his National Service with the RAF in February 1956, still
he languished in a lengthy queue of goalkeeping hopefuls and might have
been excused for ruing his decision to gamble on a future in the game.
Suddenly, however, his fortunes were transformed, as the long-serving Stan
Hanson retired and Ken Grieves, his Australian replacement, remained on
cricketing duty for Lancashire as the 1956/57 football season commenced.
Thus Hopkinson was brought in for his Bolton début in a local derby with
Blackpool, and impressed so comprehensively that he achieved the rare
distinction of being ever-present throughout his first top-flight
campaign.
The meteoric rise was emphasised by his call-up to the England under-23
squad within six weeks of making his club entrance, and then confirmed
when he was awarded his first full cap in a 4-0 victory over Wales at
Ninian Park, Cardiff, in October 1957. It was a time of opportunity
for young goalkeepers, with the England selectors unable to decide on a
regular number one, and now Hopkinson vied for the berth with Alan
Hodgkinson of Sheffield United and Colin McDonald of Burnley, who unseated
the Bolton man for the 1958 World Cup Finals in Sweden. However,
McDonald's career was ended by a broken leg and Hopkinson was recalled,
only to lose his place in 1959 to Ron Springett of Sheffield Wednesday,
who became England's first regular custodian since Gil Merrick back in
mid-decade. Considering the subsequent rise of the brilliant Gordon Banks,
it was unsurprising that Hopkinson never played for England again, though
he featured twice for the Football League and at club level he continued
to thrive.
At Wembley in May 1958 he was a key figure as Bolton overcame
Manchester United, who had reached the FA Cup Final despite losing the
majority of their first team, dead and injured in the Munich air disaster
only three months earlier. Riding on a wave of emotional nationwide
support, the Red Devils were unusually taxing opponents, but Bolton coped
coolly and professionally with the pressure, with Hopkinson making several
key saves. Over the next two seasons, as the Wanderers finished
fourth and sixth in the élite division, the keeper remained in magnificent
form behind one of the League's most fearsomely physical rearguards, in
which the full-backs Roy Hartle and Tommy Banks, and stopper John Higgins
were prominent.
Hopkinson was elastically agile and unfailingly brave, nothing loath to
plunge head-first amid the flailing feet of marauding attackers, and his
daring style was complemented by a priceless positional sense which
compensated amply for lack of height and reach. A speciality was in
dealing with one-on-one situations; as a forward bore down on him, he
would stand up until the last feasible moment, then spread himself as the
shot was released or his opponent attempted to dribble around him, and it
was rare that he was bested in such confrontations. Crucially, too,
he was almost metronomically consistent, colossally determined, and
spikily ready to stand up for himself, never being short of a spirited
rebuke to forwards whom he felt might have exceeded the limits of fair
play.
In the early 1960s, when the abolition of the footballers' maximum-wage
agreement signalled a massive reduction in the power of small-town clubs,
Bolton's star began to wane and in 1963/64 they were relegated to the
Second Division. Hopkinson remained loyal, though, and his standard
of performance did not drop at the lower level. With the likes of Francis
Lee and Freddie Hill shining, the Trotters almost returned to the top
grade at the first attempt, finishing third in 1964/65, but thereafter
they fell away to struggle towards decade's end. Throughout this
anti- climactic process, Hopkinson continued to repel all attempts by
younger men to supplant him until injury forced him to yield to Alan
Boswell and retire as a player, aged 34, in November 1969.
After that he coached the club's reserves and youngsters until 1974,
when he began a stint as assistant manager of Stockport County. There
followed a return to Burnden Park as a goalkeeping coach in 1979, then he
left the game to become a representative for a chemical company.
Still Hopkinson, whose son Paul kept goal for Stockport during the
mid-1970s, retained close connections with Bolton Wanderers, becoming an
inaugural member of the club's hall of fame and working as a corporate
hospitality host on match days. - The Independent Obituary
England
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