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If you handed just about anybody an issue of 16 Magazine from 1965, they'd look at all the fan club info and see, "Fan club for some guy in Gerry and the Pacemakers who isn't named Gerry," "Fan club for that guy with the glasses in the Zombies (no, the other one)," "Fan clubs for Gordon and Jeremy" and "Fan club for Freddie and the Dreamers."

Back then, it didn't seem to matter who they were — they were British.

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The band's first U.S. album. That's Hermit Keith Hopwood on the far right.Click to enlarge

But it's probably wrong of me to assume that nobody remembers the ins and outs of every English beat group.

After all, as soon as I implied in a story last week that nobody remembers anybody in Herman's Hermits other than Herman, I was proven wrong.

Turns out the Keith Hopwood Fan Club originated right here in Springfield.

Hopwood — geez, as if you didn't know — played guitar in the Hermits.

"You were doing the guys a big disfavor," Cindy Funk scolded me. "Back when we were buying 16 Magazine, all the guys were in there. They'd have pictures of the entire band, as well as singles of Herman. He was the cute one."

Herman — aka Peter Noone — will bring his new version of Herman's Hermits to Vets Park at 8 p.m. as part of the Summer Arts Festival.

Even as he pushes 60, Herman presumably will be the cutest guy in the park tonight, bar none.

And that's precisely why fan clubs popped up devoted to seemingly random members of the British bands.

It all began with, who else, the Beatles.

"Paul was the cute one," Funk, a 1967 Northwestern High grad, explained. "The thinking was, 'I'm this little pudgy girl, so I'll go for one of the others.'

"That's how Ringo got so popular."

But when it came to the Hermits, girls apparently decided to take their chance with Herman.

The locally based Hopwood fan club didn't have many members — and that's despite Keith's "medium-brown hair and English look," as Funk recalled.

In fact, Funk wasn't even a member.

"I should have. It would have been the friendly thing to do," she said.

Her friend and classmate, the late Nancy Adkins, was the president.

"I was more into the Beatles and she was more into the Hermits. But it was all good," said Funk, the host of a Saturday afternoon Celtic show on WYSO.

But like a good friend, Funk was part of a delegation of the Keith Hopwood Fan Club to a late '60s Herman's Hermits concert in Fort Wayne, Ind.

The delegation consisted of her, the fan club president and, well, that was it — another member was supposed to come in by bus, but never showed up.

"They ushered us into a hotel room and Keith was standing there," Funk said. "Meanwhile, I'm looking around for Peter ..."

To his credit, Hopwood co-wrote some of the Hermits' few originals and now writes music for TV's "Bob the Builder." Back in the '60s, "He was quiet," Funk said.

"I didn't know if he was surprised or embarrassed," she added.

He was, however, a young Englishman in America — so he asked his two admirers if they could run out and, no joke, grab the band some hamburgers.

"When you're in love with a star, they could ask you to do anything," Funk said. "We got them burgers, they said thanks and just shut the door."

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.