On This Day: ‘Hopkin looking to curl one’ vs Sheffield United

Club

26 May 2024

It was on this day, 26th May 1997, that David Hopkin scored a dramatic last minute goal against Sheffield United to win the play-off final for Crystal Palace, accompanied by the now legendary ‘Hopkin, looking to curl one!’ line of commentary.

But from whom better is there to gain an insight into the moment than from from Rob Hawthorne, the voice behind the famous line?

The Eagles came had gone into the play-off final seeking redemption, having lost out in the season before to Leicester City.

The team had been in good form throughout the 1996/97 season, with four players scoring 10 goals or more: Shipperley, Dougie Freedman, Hopkin and Bruce Dyer. Legendary manager Steve Coppell was also in charge.

But following a similar style to the play-off finals contested earlier in that long May weekend, the Palace v Sheffield United game was a stalemate for the vast majority of play.

“To be honest, it hadn’t been the greatest of games,” Hawthorne recounts. Hardly the recipe for forging a decades-old memory.

“Up until that point, the one before, the Crewe match, had been the best of them, but again it had only taken one goal to settle the match. So we were getting to the stage where I was mentally preparing myself for extra-time

“We got to that stage of the match, I’m half expecting extra-time, then suddenly it’s a corner routine. It goes back to the corner taker, it’s swung in, Carl Tiler, if I remember correctly, heads it away and it’s almost as if a sixth sense takes over.”

The sixth sense taking over, Hawthorne describes, is the very moment ‘Hopkin, looking to curl one!’ was uttered; an instinctive moment to treasure both on the pitch and from the press gantry.

“You can see the gap in the goal, you can see what he’s aiming at. Obviously it’s a fantastic goal and from Palace fans' point of view it’s one they always remember with great affection, not only because of how great a goal it was but obviously because of what it meant.

“As a commentator, instinct takes over and you just say the first thing that comes into your head as it’s happening. To be fair to Simon Tracey in the Sheffield United goal there was nothing that he could’ve done about it - it was just a wonderful, wonderful goal and it was great to be able to commentate on it.”

The Scottish midfielder curled the ball right past the helpless Simon Tracey in the Sheffield United goal and wheeled away in celebration. His goal clinched promotion for the Eagles in the most dramatic fashion.

Hawthorne was not the only one to come away inspired.

Palace: Nash (GK); Muscat, Tuttle, Linighan; Edworthy, Roberts, Hopkin (c), Rodger, Gordon; Shipperley, Dyer

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