Celebrate This Life – Sheila Hopkins

I first got to know Sheila Hopkins back in the day when I was asked to do the commentary on games for the Birmingham Bullets.  This was a glorious time in the history of basketball in the West Midlands.  The team was owned by Harry and Michael Wrublewski from Australia and was run on a day to day basis by Harry.  Michael spent his time running their other team – The Sydney Kings in Australia.

Harry had recruited a great team and they were doing OK, but he wanted more.  The line-up, as I recall, included Nigel Lloyd, Tony Simms, Lijah Perkins, Chris Haslam, Clive Allen, Stedroy Baker, H L Coleman and more.  But it was going to take someone special to take this team to success.

That someone was Tony Dorsey.  I saw him play his first game for the Bullets and from that day the Bullets would never be the same and neither would British Basketball.  One further addition would be made to the team and it was another significant one – La General, as I called him…Trevor Gordon.

Harry would move the team from the Aston Villa Leisure Centre to the sensational NIA Birmingham and later to the NEC. During all this time Sheila Hopkins was at his right hand.  To quote Harry, “I remember the first meeting I had with the Bullets’ volunteers.  Sheila viewed herself as an assistant, and yet from that very first meeting, I knew she could be so much more.  It was typical of Sheila to underplay her value…. Her input was always far greater than she viewed it.”

The team would go on to great success filling the arenas and eventually to Championship success.  It is a joy to look back on the pictures from that first Championship win.  It had not come as a surprise to me as I had been raving about them for some months.

A second Championship success would follow and again the joy of the Bullets’ organisation was there for all to see.  To be honest, I did not see that one coming.

Eventually Harry and wife Sara along with son Sam would take the decision to return to their native Australia and basketball in Birmingham would take a nose dive of gigantic proportions.

There is a saying that one person cannot make a difference and Harry had a great team around him, but the owners who took over the Bullets proved that without leadership, organisations will wither on the vine.

Through it all, Sheila and others including Sue, Del, Mandy, Steve Amos and others tried their best to help but they were fighting a losing battle, quite often being ignored by people who knew far less about West Midlands Basketball than they did.  The rest as they say is history.

On Monday it was a delight to see a full house at Aston Parish Church for Sheila’s funeral.  It was a joy to see so many basketball faces in the house.  Fab Flournoy, Vince Macaulay, Colin Rhoons, etc.  Referees including Wil Jones and Steve Williams among others were there, as were representatives of every aspect of the game, from junior through to senior.  I cannot list the names of everyone who was there.

Since the establishment of the BBL back in 1987, there have only been three Chief Executives of the organisation and all three, Dave Clark, Mike Smith and Andy Webb were present.  This was a tribute to the importance in which basketball held Sheila Hopkins.

The Head Teacher of Sheila’s school Julie Davis plus numerous members of Staff and dozens of parents and pupils were in the congregation as were Sheila’s family and close friends.  Julie read a letter from one of the pupils at the school.  I was not the only one in tears at that moment.

Her brother Neville Hopkins, another British Basketball legend literally stood head and shoulders above the rest of us.

The world has lost a very special person in Sheila Hopkins and the Basketball world has lost someone it will find impossible to replace.

The last time I saw Sheila was at the Great Britain game at the NIA Birmingham during the summer of 2008.  For a time back in the day, the NIA was, without doubt, her second home.

It is appropriate that her final big game was at a venue that held such sweet memories for Sheila Hopkins.

I’ll leave the final words to her friends Harry and Sara Wrublewski writing from their home in Australia, “Her passion for basketball in general, and the Bullets in particular, made our transition into the club so much easier and my time at the Birmingham Bullets was enhanced by Sheila’s involvement.  We will, together with her family and friends in Birmingham, miss her dearly.”

RIP Sheila HOPKINS
Mike SHAFT
Bolton, England