“The crowd was clapping when he went on and still clapping when he went off.”   The above was an observation from Subiaco player Bob Kitchin that made a Daily News Quote Of The Week segment in 1970.    “It was Peter Featherby’s debut match,” Kitchin recalled. “It was a long awaited moment for many Subiaco fans, and as he ran onto the ground after starting on the bench, the claps resounded around Subiaco Oval. As he sprinted to the middle he did a hammy, and limped straight back to the pine.” They say that timing is everything, and for Bob Kitchin it could be said that his timing was wrong. Fleet footed rover Kitchin’s recruitment from the Great Southern was followed by the appointment of Haydn Bunton as coach. The brilliant Bunton had astonishing stamina and endurance qualities, and rarely spent any time off the ball, which meant that Kitchin spent the bulk of his fifty seven games in a forward pocket.  The waste of a talented rover didn’t go unnoticed in other quarters, and East Perth’s Malcolm Brown was in constant touch with him to move to the Royals and other sides he coached for more opportunities. “I believed in playing at the one club, and to suggest I was unhappy with the situation would be untrue,” he said. “I was getting a game every week, albeit as a forward plus I was enjoying my footy.” When Kitchin debuted for  Subiaco against East Fremantle only weeks into his seventeenth year it continued a trend in his football career. He was only twelve when he played his first senior game of football. “It was for Western Districts in the Great Southern League,” he recalled. “Western Districts was a combined club from Rocky Gully and Frankland, and they were one short.” He was also a promising cricketer, scoring a hundred and twenty not out of Mt Barker’s hundred and eighty in a match against the State Schoolboys as a junior.   Bob played junior football at North Mt Barker and Rocky Gully while attending Mt Barker High before going to Albany High School to board and join the Bob Coleman-coached Railways Football Club. The Great Southern League boasted a  strong competition in those days, but a few of the playing surfaces weren’t like they are today.  “I remember playing on the Rocky Gully School Oval, where there wasn’t a blade of grass, and gravel rash was the order of the day,” Bob said. “On moving to a new ground carved out of the bush, players would stoop down on running onto the ground before the game to pick up loose rocks and roots and throw them off the oval.”  Kitchin was an outstanding junior, winning fairest and best trophies at North Mt Barker and impressing at Railways, and it was East Perth that was his preferred destination. But a visit to the family farm by Subiaco’s Basil Fuller with a job and accommodation convinced him to head to Roberts Road. “I stayed first with the Wade family and then the Bartlett family, who each had  sons playing at Subiaco,” Bob said. “And I got the bus into Perth to my job at Henderson’s Instrument Company, later moving to Vox Adeon’s.” Kitchin had a preview of life in the WAFL and the toughness of new teammate Dinny Barron in a pre season match at East Fremantle Oval. “Austin Robertson was being roughed up by Trevor Sprigg, so Barron moved in and gave Trevor a real howdy do. He got three weeks at the Tribunal, but it made life easier for Austin whenever we played East.” It wasn’t long later that another reminder of the toughness of the game was imprinted on the young Kitchin.  “I was playing seconds that day, and hadn’t even got out of the shower when in came an unconscious Trevor Williams, carried by a few trainers,” he recalled. “He’d been whacked by Michael Regan, who later got twenty one weeks and subsequently retired from league football.”      Kitchin later made his debut against East Fremantle, remained in the league side for most of the remainder of the season, and stayed there the following year.  In 1968 he saw finals action when Subiaco fronted East Perth in the first semi final. “There are some supporters at Subiaco who still haven’t forgiven me,” he told Footygoss. “We were in front at the thirty three minute mark. I got hold of the ball from a Robbie Young ruck tap, headed straight for the big sticks, drilled it….and missed. As the final seconds rolled by Bradley Smith kicked a long one to Chadwick, who had a run along the boundary before picking out  Evans, who put it through right on the siren, and we lost by three points.”  He redeemed himself somewhat in the corresponding final of the 1969 season, booting six goals in a losing side when Perth were eight point winners, receiving a carton of beer for his efforts. It was in October of that year that Subiaco and East Perth toured India promoting Australian Rules Football in the Sub-Continent. Two games were played in New Delhi, with each team winning a game. Subiaco narrowly won the first match, while East Perth comfortably won the second. East Fremantle provided Kitchin with some of the outstanding memories of his career, and it was a clash between the two that provided him with one of the highlights. “Playing alongside Austin Robertson when he kicked those sixteen goals to claim an Australian record of a hundred and sixty seven goals for the season was a definite buzz,” he said.  After a season of turmoil at Subiaco in 1971, in which they finished fifth, the twenty year old Kitchin left the Maroons and played a season at Wongan Hills, before doing pre season the following year back at Subiaco Oval. After finishing sixth in 1972, the Subiaco club had appointed former St Kilda player Ross Smith as playing coach. When not included in the league training squad, Kitchin decided to play at Wembley Amateurs, where he became part of a strong combination, winning flags in 1973,74,76, and 78. The club had already added the 1968, 71, and 72, premierships to it’s belt, so the black and whites were a dominant side during that period.  Kitchin captained Wembley and won a fairest and best award during eight years at the club as a player. His involvement at Wembley continues, and he has held the office of treasurer of the Wembley overriding  sporting body (Wembley Athletic Club) for a number of years.   Rob Kitchin treasures his time in football, both on and off the field. “Maybe too much off the field,” he laughed. “Footy was different those days, you could have some fun as well as enjoy the game. We all had to go to work all week. Despite the big money they get these days, I’m not sure they enjoy it as much as we did.”   “Bob Johnson played a season with Subiaco and although in the twilight of his career, I was always amazed that no one tried harder or gave more than “Big Bob.” The six foot seven Johnson was a character, and he earned the wrath of a group of bikies one day as we returned from a footy trip down the river, with the big man ending up in the river.”    Bob nominated Perth back pocket specialist Allan “Chubby” Stiles, South Fremantle’s Franz Tomka, and East Perth star Bob “Dobbie” Graham as hardest to beat, and went for Cam Blakemore and Robertson as best he played with. A long time employee at Wilson Parking, he is now Group Financial Controller in the Perth Office, which is Wilson’s Head Office in Australia. He has a boy (Ryan) and a daughter( Deanne.) A man with a great sense of humour and a swag of yarns, Bob Kitchin’s career was probably stifled to a certain extent by the presence of a champion rover who could run all day, but he has no regrets about that. “I had a great time in football and made lifelong friends with both team mates and opponents,” Bob remarked. “It was an honour for me to play alongside Bunton, Robertson, Sarre, Blakemore, Hampson, Eakins, Young and Featherby amongst others.”