SCOTSMAN REPORTS

Hodgkinson honoured as Hawks and Navy pay tribute to top player and dedicated marine
DAVID FERGUSON
SCOTTISH rugby will this evening remember a talented young player whose life was taken cruelly during a match last year.

Glasgow Hawks and the Royal Navy will meet at Old Anniesland to celebrate Craig Hodgkinson, the former Glasgow Hawks player and top marine who died of a heart attack on the eve of his 27th birthday in Plymouth last November, while playing for the Royal Navy.

The idea for the game stemmed from Commodore Jim Patrick, chairman of Navy Rugby, and Craig's parents John and Di. In attendance will be former Scotland and Lions skipper Finlay Calder, SRU chairman Allan Munro, comedian Andy Cameron, former players from as far afield as South Africa and busloads of serving marines from Faslane and Fife. A crowd of several thousand is expected.

Proceeds will go to the Craig Hodgkinson Trust, set up by his parents to raise funds for heart-start defibrillators. They will present two tonight, one to the High School of Glasgow, for use by the school and local sports clubs, and the other to the Royal Navy.

John Hodgkinson said: "Craig would have loved this match and we hope it will become an annual event, but we also want to take the opportunity of having a fundraising event for the Trust which helps us in our aim of buying defibrillators.

"We believe that they should be provided at all sports venues anyway; you go to the USA and they are everywhere, go to Sweden and they're in all hotel foyers. We don't know 100 per cent if a defibrillator could have saved Craig, had there been one to hand in November, but it's possible it might have brought him round. Seconds and minutes count in cases like this and at the moment we have to wait for defibrillators to arrive in an ambulance, but it needn't be that way.

"They cost around £1,600 each and it's our intention to buy as many as we can for sports centres in the west of Scotland and then try to expand, hopefully with the help of the Scottish Executive who could match us pound for pound and spread them across Scotland much quicker.

"We're hoping to have a great night at Anniesland, both to remember Craig and to help raise awareness of cardiac risk in the young, from sudden cardiac death and sudden death syndrome. This could be the start of something."

Craig was one of the apparent eight healthy young people who die every week in the UK with undiagnosed heart conditions, according to the charity CRY - Cardiac Risk in the Young - supported by Ian Botham and Sir Steve Redgrave.

Always a keen rugby player, Craig played for the Scotland at Under-18 level and was a stand-out with Glasgow Hawks before leaving university to join the Royal Marines in May 2004. His professional soldiering skills were of such a high standard that he was awarded the prestigious King's Badgeman award for most outstanding recruit at the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines (CTCRM).

Marine Hodgkinson was deployed with HMS Bulwark in January 2006 to the North Arabian Gulf, where he assisted with the protection of the Iraqi oil platforms, and was duly awarded the Operational Service Medal (Iraq). Last July, HMS Bulwark was called upon to help evacuate UK entitled personnel from Beirut, Lebanon and Craig worked tirelessly to assist some 1,300 personnel, providing security, food and water.

He played for the Navy's rugby team on several occasions, but died tragically in a Navy match.

Commander Andy Aspden, Executive Officer of HMS Bulwark, said: "Craig was a larger than life character who had the potential to go far within the Royal Marines. He was intelligent, mature, highly professional and an extremely fit individual. He will be sorely missed."

Tonight's match is a celebration of Hodgkinson's life and there will be a minute's applause before the game. Pre-match music will be provided by the Regimental Band of the Royal Marines and the High School of Glasgow Pipe Band from 6pm, with the game kicking off at 7.30pm.

This article was posted on 18-May-2007, 06:56 by Hugh Barrow.