Jeff Hopgood (14 January 1948 – 8 November 2006) was an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

er who played with

North Melbourne North Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne Local government ar ...

in the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football competition in Australia operated by the Australian Football League (AFL) as a second-tier, regional, semi-professional competition. It includes teams from clubs based in east ...

(VFL). Hopgood spent six season at North Melbourne without ever managing to cement his spot, although he did manage 16 games in 1972. After leaving North Melbourne, Hopgood played at

Coburg Coburg ( , ) is a Town#Germany, town located on the Itz (river), Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Ernestine duchies, Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only ...

and was a ruckman in their 1974 VFA premiership side. He later became influential in the

Cairns Cairns (; ) is a city in the Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. In the , Cairns had a population of 153,181 people. The city was founded in 1876 and named after William Cairns, Sir W ...

sporting scene, serving as the president of

AFL Cairns AFL Cairns is a semi-professional Australian rules football league that includes clubs from the Cairns region in Queensland, Australia. It is widely regarded as the strongest regional Australian rules football league in Queensland and has a lar ...

and the inaugural chairman of the

Cairns Taipans The Cairns Taipans are an Australian professional basketball team based in Cairns, Queensland. The Taipans compete in the National Basketball League (NBL) and play their home games at the Cairns Convention Centre, known colloquially as "The S ...

basketball team, of which he was a co-founder. Affectionately known as Hoppy, he was killed in November 2006 when his four-wheel drive crashed into a tree near the Gold Coast.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hopgood, Jeff 1948 births North Melbourne Football Club players Coburg Football Club players Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state) Australian rules football administrators Road incident deaths in Queensland 2006 deaths 20th-century Australian sportsmen