Charlie Hodgson
Encyclopedia
Charles Christopher Hodgson (born 12 November 1980 in Halifax, West Yorkshire
Halifax, West Yorkshire
Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...

) is an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 footballer. He plays fly-half for Saracens
Saracens F.C.
Saracens are a professional rugby union team based in St. Albans, England – although they play their home games at Vicarage Road, in Watford. They are currently members of the Aviva Premiership, the top level of domestic rugby union in England...

 and England
England national rugby union team
The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...

. He is also the leading Premiership points scorer of all time.

Early years

Hodgson was educated at Bradford Grammar School
Bradford Grammar School
Bradford Grammar School is a co-educational, independent school in Frizinghall, Bradford, West Yorkshire. Headmaster, Stephen Davidson is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference . The school was founded in 1548 and granted its Charter by King Charles II in 1662...

; the school hosts a rugby tournament for under-12s called the Charlie Hodgson Cup. He was a huge Halifax
Halifax RLFC
Halifax RLFC is one of the most historic rugby league clubs in the game, formed over a century ago, in 1873 in the Yorkshire town of Halifax. Known as 'Fax', the official club colours are blue and white hoops, blue shorts and blue socks . They share The Shay stadium with football club FC Halifax Town...

 rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...

 fan long before he ever played rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

. A family friend invited him to Old Brodleians
Old Brodleians
Old Brodelians RUFC is an English rugby union club from Hipperholme, near Halifax, West Yorkshire. They currently play in the North 1 East league, after achieving promotion at the end of the 2008-09 season.-History:...

 rugby club and his first game was for the opposition, as they were short. He has also played for Old Brodleians
Old Brodleians
Old Brodelians RUFC is an English rugby union club from Hipperholme, near Halifax, West Yorkshire. They currently play in the North 1 East league, after achieving promotion at the end of the 2008-09 season.-History:...

, Durham University and Yorkshire.He was first picked for Yorkshire by Keith Dyas.

Career

He first played for Sale Sharks
Sale Sharks
Sale Sharks are a professional rugby union club who play in England in the Aviva Premiership.The club is an offshoot of Sale FC, which is based at Heywood Road in Sale, Greater Manchester, but Sharks currently play in Stockport at Edgeley Park, ground sharing with Stockport County F.C.Part of the...

 against French club Auch in 2000. Sale Sharks is where Hodgson has seen his greatest success in winning the 2005/06 Guinness Premiership
Guinness Premiership
The English Premiership, also currently known as the Aviva Premiership because of the league's sponsorship by Aviva, is a professional league competition for rugby union football clubs in the top division of the English rugby system. There are twelve clubs in the Premiership...

 in a dominant victory over Leicester Tigers
Leicester Tigers
Leicester Tigers is an English rugby union club that plays in the Aviva Premiership.Leicester are the most successful English club since the introduction of league rugby in 1987, a record 9 times English champions - 3 more than either Bath or Wasps, the last of which was in 2010...

 at Twickenham
Twickenham Stadium
Twickenham Stadium is a stadium located in Twickenham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is the largest rugby union stadium in the United Kingdom and has recently been enlarged to seat 82,000...

. He marked his England
England national rugby union team
The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...

 début with a record breaking 44 point haul against Romania
Romania national rugby union team
The Romania national rugby union team , nicknamed The Oaks , is the representative side of Romania in rugby union. Long considered one of the stronger European teams outside the Six Nations, they have participated in all six Rugby World Cups, and currently compete in the first division of the...

 in November 2001, the most by any England
England national rugby union team
The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...

 player in a test match, when England
England national rugby union team
The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...

 won 134–0.

He was selected at centre in the 2003 Six Nations. He played 2 games at centre, only to be demoted to the subs bench for the third match against Italy. It was in this game he picked up a serious injury. He made a welcome return to action during the 2003/04 season, after having been sidelined for eight months with a ruptured cruciate ligament
Cruciate ligament
Cruciate ligaments are pairs of ligaments arranged like a letter X. They occur in several joints of the body, such as the knee...

 in his left knee. The injury had denied him selection for the 2003 World Cup and another injury kept him out of the 2004 Six Nations
Six Nations Championship
The Six Nations Championship is an annual international rugby union competition involving six European sides: England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales....

. He played at fly-half during the 2004 summer tour to the Southern Hemisphere, for all three internationals against New Zealand
All Blacks
The New Zealand men's national rugby union team, known as the All Blacks, represent New Zealand in what is regarded as its national sport....

 and Australia
Australia national rugby union team
The Australian national rugby union team is the representative side of Australia in rugby union. The national team is nicknamed the Wallabies and competes annually with New Zealand and South Africa in the Tri-Nations Series, in which they also contest the Bledisloe Cup with New Zealand and the...

. He was named Man of the Match against Canada
Canada national rugby union team
The Canada national rugby union team represents Canada in international rugby union. They are governed by Rugby Canada, and play in red and black. Canada is classified by the International Rugby Board as a tier two rugby nation. There are ten tier one nations, and seven tier two nations, the...

 in the Autumn of that year.

Hodgson has received criticism for his inconsistent goal kicking, which was partly responsible for England
England national rugby union team
The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...

's disappointing performance in the 2005 Six Nations championship.

Hodgson was selected for the 2005 British and Irish Lions
British and Irish Lions
The British and Irish Lions is a rugby union team made up of players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales...

 tour of New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.

Whilst playing for England against South Africa on 18 November 2006, Hodgson ruptured the cruciate ligament
Cruciate ligament
Cruciate ligaments are pairs of ligaments arranged like a letter X. They occur in several joints of the body, such as the knee...

 in his right knee that ensured he would miss the rest of the 2006/07 season. Subsequently he did not appear for England throughout the whole of 2007, missing the 2007 Rugby World Cup
2007 Rugby World Cup
The 2007 Rugby World Cup was the sixth Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. Twenty nations competed for the Webb Ellis Cup in the tournament, which was hosted by France from 7 September to 20 October. France won the hosting rights in 2003,...

 through injury, just as he had in 2003
2003 Rugby World Cup
The 2003 Rugby World Cup was the fifth Rugby World Cup and was won by England. Originally planned to be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, all games were shifted to Australia following a contractual dispute over ground signage rights between the New Zealand Rugby Football Union and Rugby World...

. Only two English fly-halves have started ten or more Test matches in a row for England; Hodgson holds the record for most consecutive starts: 18 between 2004 and 2006.

Hodgson made his return to the England
England national rugby union team
The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...

 squad for the 2008 Six Nations Championship
2008 Six Nations Championship
The 2008 Six Nations Championship, known as the 2008 RBS 6 Nations because of the tournament's sponsorship by the Royal Bank of Scotland, was the ninth series of the rugby union Six Nations Championship. Including the previous incarnations as the Home Nations and Five Nations, this was the 114th...

. Hodgson was dropped during England's tour of New Zealand in 2008 as he was perceived to have a weak defence.

Hodgson has been voted Sale Sharks player of the season three times: 2008, 2009, and 2010.

After two years away from the international side, Hodgson was selected to play for England in May 2010. During his time away from the England set-up, Hodgson had improved his defence enough to impress the new coach, Martin Johnson.

Hodgson was selected for England's June tour of New Zealand. He was selected at fly-half for the first test but was subbed early in the second half because of some defensive errors most notably the missed tackle on centre Ma'a Nonu
Ma'a Nonu
Ma'a Allan Nonu is a professional Samoan rugby union player from New Zealand. Nonu plays for the Wellington Lions in the ITM Cup and the New Zealand All Blacks...

 which lead to a try. He took no further part in the tour. Hodgson's next game for England was against the barbarians on 29 May 2010 however he was substituted in the first half due to a facial injury. Hodgson was included in Johnson's squad to tour Australia in June 2010, although he did not play in the Tests.

In an attempt to correct a long-standing shoulder problem, Hodgson underwent surgery in August 2010. Although he missed the start of the 2010/11 season, he recovered to take his place in Sale's team in September. Although not originally in England's squad for the 2010 winter internationals, Hodgson was called up as cover after Wilkinson suffered a shoulder injury. In England's 21–11 defeat to South Africa Hodgson sustained what was thought to be a broken foot; however, it was later discovered that the suspected bruise was a broken foot. The incident coincided with a spate of long-term injuries at Sale including captain James Gaskell
James Gaskell
James Gaskell is a rugby union player for Sale Sharks in the Aviva Premiership. He plays as a flanker or lock. After making the debut for Sale in 2008, Gaskell was named the club's Breakthrough Player of the Year for the 2009/10 season...

, stand-in captain Neil Briggs
Neil Briggs
Neil Briggs is a rugby union player for Sale Sharks in the Aviva Premiership.Briggs plays as a Hooker, but he can also play as a Flanker as he has done on numerous occasions for the Sharks....

, Eifion Roberts
Eifion Roberts
Eifion Lewis-Roberts is a Welsh international rugby union player for Toulon in the Top 14....

, and Tom Brady
Tom Brady
Thomas Edward Patrick "Tom" Brady, Jr. is an American football quarterback for the New England Patriots of the National Football League . After playing college football at Michigan, Brady was drafted by the Patriots in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft.He has played in four Super Bowls,...

. He returned from injury on 2 January 2011, taking part in Sale's 28–22 win against Saracens. Just over a week later, Hodgson signed a three-year contract with Saracens, stating that he wanted a "new challenge". Sale's chief executive, Mick Hogan, paid tribute to Hodgson, saying that "Without doubt, he will be considered one of the greatest players to ever play for Sale Sharks". Towards the end of the seasons, in April, Hodgson scored his 1,000th point at Edgeley Park. He passed the landmark in a match against Gloucester; Hodgson assumed the role of captain for the game and victory helped Sale avoid relegation.

Private life

On 23 June 2007, Hodgson married Daisy Hartley at Bolton Abbey
Bolton Abbey
Bolton Abbey is the estate within which is located the ruined 12th-century Augustinian Bolton Priory in North Yorkshire, England. It gives its name to the parish of Bolton Abbey.-Bolton Priory:...

 in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

. The couple have two children.

External links

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