Brett Hodgson

Brett Hodgson (born 12 February 1978 in Liverpool, New South Wales) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s and one of the current Assistant Coaches at Widnes Vikings working alongside Dennis Betts and Mick Cassidy. A New South Wales State of Origin representative goal-kicking fullback, he played his club football in the National Rugby League (NRL) for the Western Suburbs Magpies, Parramatta Eels and Wests Tigers (with whom he won the 2005 NRL premiership), and in Super League for Huddersfield (with whom he won the 2009 Man of Steel Award) and Warrington Wolves. Hodgson also gained representative selection for Exiles and City NSW.

Playing career

An Ingleburn RSL (Campbelltown) junior, Hodgson was graded to the Western Suburbs Magpies. He made his first-grade debut under coach Tommy Raudonikis in round 11 of the 1997 ARL season, when Wests met the South Queensland Crushers at Campbelltown Stadium.

In 2008, Hodgson was the last remaining pre-2000 Western Suburbs Magpies' footballer playing in the NRL, before the return of John Skandalis in 2009, and Ray Cashmere in 2012.

Huddersfield Giants

Huddersfield Giants are an English professional rugby league club from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire who play in the Super League competition. They play their home games at the John Smith's Stadium which is shared with Huddersfield Town F.C.. Huddersfield is also one of the original twenty-two rugby clubs that formed the Northern Rugby Football Union in 1895, making them one of the world's first rugby league teams. They have won 7 Championships and 6 Challenge Cups, but have not won a major trophy since 1962, some 53 years ago.

The club, particularly amongst older supporters, is sometimes referred to as Fartown, named after the ground which they occupied up until 1992, which is located in the Fartown district of Huddersfield. The club was known as Huddersfield Barracudas from 1984-88 and Huddersfield-Sheffield Giants (after a merger with the original Sheffield Eagles) for the 2000 season.

They play in a distinctive strip of a claret shirt with thin gold hoops, claret shorts and claret and gold hooped socks and are currently sponsored by Bond It. They have rivalries with Warrington Wolves, Leeds Rhinos, Bradford Bulls, Halifax and Wakefield Trinity Wildcats.

Brett

Brett derives from a Middle English surname meaning "a Breton", referring to an inhabitant of Brittany. Brette can be a feminine name.

Surname

Hodgson

Hodgson is a surname. In Britain, the Hodgson surname was the 173rd most common (766 per million) in 1881 and the 206th most common (650 per million) in 1998. In the United States of America, Hodgson was the 3753rd most popular surname (30 per million) in the 1990 census.

Origin and meaning

The surname authority P. H. Reaney (1958, p. 166) states that Hodgson is derived from "son of Hodge" and that Hodge, in turn, is a "pet-form of Roger". This view has been repeated by several others, and Reaney (1967) himself.

Roger is a Norman French name. In which case one would expect it to be more common in the South of England, which was first and more heavily settled by the Normans. An alternative explanation that Hodgson is of Anglo-Saxon origin would suggest that Hodgson would be more common in Anglo-Saxon areas, particularly in the South of England or east of the Pennines.

By contrast the Hodgsons are most numerous in Yorkshire in England, which was settled by the Norse Vikings in the tenth century. Hodgson could thus be derived from the Norse name Oddgeir, as suggested by earlier surname authorities. Alternatively, it could derive from the less frequent Norse name Hrodgeir (from which, as it happens, the name Roger has evolved).