John Rogers ended a thirty six year association with football in 1995.Part of the football scene in Western Australia for twenty eight years, his broadcasting style adding to the excitement of the game.  He was anything but dull, and certainly livened up Challenge Stadium in later years as courtside announcer for the Wildcats Basketball team.His entry into league football was by no means run of the mill either. “I was doing cadet training at Northam Army Camp in 1959 when I happened to be strolling past the quartermaster’s store and decided to buy a paper,” he recalled. “ There on the back page were the football teams for Saturday, and J.Rogers was headlined to make his debut for Claremont. It didn’t really worry me initially, because there was another J.Rogers at the club.”“I found out that it was indeed yours truly, so absconded from the camp and hitchhiked to Bassendean Oval. Walking along Great Eastern Highway was no preparation for a league match the same day, and I got hammered playing in a back pocket. It was my one and only league appearance that year.”   Selected again the following season, in a game that Ian Brayshaw and John Grieve also started their careers, the bad luck continued. “In a back pocket opposed to Joe Fanchi, Blue Foley grabbed the ball from the opening bounce, booted it forward, but I reckoned I was nicely positioned in front of Joe to meet the bouncing ball. As it was almost in my grasp, the bloody thing skewed sideways over my head and into the arms of Fanchi, who kicked truly. The game was eleven seconds old, Joe said, “bad luck, son,” and I thought: “there goes my footy career!”Rogers recovered from the setback, and was given an honourable mention after the match. It was the first of seventy eight appearances for the Tigers, and he was rarely out of the side after that. Nicknamed after the comic strip hero, “Buck” Rogers was a close checking, aggressive player who read the play well, with long kicking a feature of his game. He was to try out with Boston Patriots after his football career ended. Rogers was in a back pocket when Claremont achieved a memorable premiership win over East Fremantle in 1964. “It was an amazing year, we played in virtual finals for the last few weeks of the qualifying rounds, relying on other results to fall our way,” he said.The story of coach Jimmy Conway addressing the players at half time of the West Perth game has been told on these pages before, but is worth telling again. “We had to beat West Perth in the last qualifying round to make the four. At half time we were  behind, and the air in the changerooms was one of gloom. We were all disconsolate, and Conway was doing his utmost to change the mood to a more positive one. He stood in front of the blackboard with a cigarette in  his left hand and a piece of chalk in the other. “We need positiveness,” he said, in that easygoing manner he had, “no time for hesitation or nervousness.”Then he proceeded to write on the board with his cigarette.  “We all broke up at this, and whether by design or not, it changed the atmosphere straight away, and we won the game.”Old habits die hard, and the commentator Rogers described the dying minutes of the game.“We were down and out, a couple of goals behind, when the eventual Simpson Medallist, Norm Rogers, who had dominated Ian Brewer throughout, went down with a hammy. Only the captain or the coach, both of which were Bob Johnson, playing at full forward for East, were authorised to send a replacement onto the ground, and as he was at the opposite end to Norm, our trainers were waving their towels and our players were doing all they could to distract Johnson.”“It turned out that Ian got on his own, we managed to get it to him, and he became part of footy folklore at Claremont.”John made Johnson’s day even more miserable when he gave him an almighty whack in the ribs. “As Bob lay on the ground in pain he glared up at me and mouthed: “I’ll get you,” Rogers said.“It took about nine months but he did.”        “The following season I was running after the ball in the East Fremantle goalmouth when immediately in front of me was the forearm of Bob Johnson, which was about head high. As I held a bloody snozzle he yelled: “told ya.”1965 was to be Rogers’s last year, a knee injury in the second semi final loss to Swan Districts ending the defender’s career at the age of twenty four. A comeback attempt two years later proved unsuccessful. After the disappointment of a career ending injury and a losing finals campaign, John Rogers went on an around the world odyssey, with time spent on Icelandic fishing boats among many highlights, which also included a tryout with the Boston Patriots. It didn’t take long to get back into football on his return two years later, and John began listening to the football broadcasts, thinking: “I could do that.” He wrote to the footy stations, and received an audition invitation from 6IX. His appointment as an “around the grounds” man began a twenty eight year career with the media, and many would remember the dulcet tones of John Rogers. He kicked off his commentating days with some of the masters of the trade: Oliver Drake-Brockman, Frank Sparrow, Bob Hicks, Neil Garland, and Bob Miller. During a career of  television and radio, Rogers worked with the cream of the crop in the golden days of WANFL football radio and TV, with most radio stations and TV channels running football shows and commentary.John also hosted golf , yachting, and baseball shows, as well as the inaugural Fremantle to Bali yacht race and was involved in the Americas Cup broadcasts in Fremantle. His foray into the world of basketball was a memorable part of his life. “The sport was booming, we had sellout crowds with games booked out a season in advance, and games telecast live,” he enthused.   The advent of the AFL sounded the deathknell of WAFL in the media, and Rogers, who was always a part time participant in the media, left the industry to concentrate on his full time job as manager of the Medical and Surgical Division of 3M. He was a keen yachtsman, having sailed in in an Olympic selection trial on Lake Macquarie, but his sailing activities were curtailed by knee aches and pains. A forty one foot pleasure cruiser is a far cry from a fishing boat off Reykjavik, but he and wife Jenny made the most of it as often as possible.   Rogers played on some pretty sharp rovers in his time, and reckons it was always a rough day at the office. “Billy Walker was brilliance personified, throw in Barry Cable, Joe Fanchi, Peter Medhurst, and Haydn Bunton and you get a fair idea of the quality,” he said. He went for Denis Marshall as best he played with. “Denis and John Gerovich were so good with both feet you couldn’t pick which one they were kicking with,” he said.After an extensive career in football, Rogers found time to serve on the board of directors at Claremomt Football Club, and is an enthusiastic supporter of the club today. A fine back pocket exponent and premiership player of the sixties, John Rogers was also a leading media personality in his own right and  served the game well in Western Australia.