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Ross Gosden played 166 games with Subiaco between 1960 and 1969, almost exclusively in a back pocket. “I fronted up for the Thirds one day as a rover, but they only had one vacancy...back pocket,” he joked when we chatted with him. He became the first specialist back pocket player to win the club's league fairest and best award, and was a permanent fixture in the defensive position throughout his career. “I did get a roving berth in a game in 66, when we copped a few injuries,” he recalled. “I was in a three way change with Neville Taylor and Reg Hampson in that match.” The former Hale School student played with Shenton Park in the Metropolitan League before trialling with the Subiaco thirds in 1957 at the age of seventeen, as a rover. Picked in a back pocket because they had enough rovers, he won the fairest and best the following season, and was promoted to the reserves in 1959, where coach Mike Somerford( “ a great coach,” said Ross) played him on a half back flank.  Gosden was selected in a back pocket for Subiaco's league side in the first game of the 1960 season, against reigning premiers East Perth. “I was understandably nervous, and when I noticed Jack Sheedy take his position in front of me, with Graham Farmer nearby, I thought, “What am I doing here?”   “I felt that I did reasonably well, but coach Charlie Tyson must have thought otherwise and I was dropped for the second game, never to return again that season,” he said. “ Charlie told me later that I didn't kick the ball long enough.” AFL  back pocket players of today, please take note! The advent of former Fitzroy player, Dan Murray, in 1961, was the catalyst for the start of Gosden's career. “Murray was the first to introduce the sequencing of numbers for league and reserves, instead of duplicating them, and I ended up with 47, a number I kept throughout my playing days,” he said. “ Ron Jarvis had retired, so the back pocket was available, and I was selected.”  Gosden was a lightly built five foot ten, but his judgement was impeccable, and with pace and good ground skills, he was well credentialled to handle the many goalkicking rovers around at the time.   Subiaco had endured a premiership drought since 1924, and hopes were high in 1961. They had thrashed East Perth in the last game of the qualifying rounds, and were leading Swan Districts in the preliminary final until the closing moments. “ I was chasing Billy Walker,” Ross recalled.  “The ball went out of bounds, then skewed suddenly sideways. The boundary ump was unsighted, the sideways skew landed in Walker's waiting arms, and he sent it sailing through the sticks,” Gosden recalled philosophically. “Haydn Bunton still recalls that bounce.” Swans defeated East Perth the following week, and that became the closest that Ross Gosden was to get to a grand final. “We played in four first semi finals after that but lost them all,” he said.  Ross won the Outridge Medal as Subiaco's fairest and best player in 1966, a huge effort from a permanent back pocket, and the only one from the Lions to do so. Gosden never got to wear the State colours. “I was a reserve a couple of times, but those were the days when they'd pick two fullbacks for the backline and three centremen for the centreline,” he said.  During his career, he fielded offers from Fitzroy( per Dan Murray), Footscray, and was contacted by Carlton coach Ken Hands, but he was happy to stay put at Subiaco.  Ross Gosden retired from league football in 1968. “Like most others at the time, I had to make a living, and there was no money in football,” he said. A painting contractor, he later joined Merifield and Stokes Real Estate. Elected to the Subiaco Football Club Board in 1969, he served for three years, returning some years later in the “Save Subi” period as a selector, and was also a State selector.  After his football days were over, Gosden joined other Subiaco stalwarts Kevin Merifield and Terry Williams, as well as Claremont's John Fairbrass, and played in a rugby competition.  Billy Walker was his toughest assignment as a defender. “Bunton would rove all day for Swans, leaving Billy Walker as a permanent forward pocket,” he recalled “You had to be on your mettle with Billy,” he said, while acknowledging Farmer as the best player he'd played against. As for team mates: “Laurie Kettlewell. A weight for age champion.” Ross Gosden is also an enthusiastic golfer, having been a committeeman and club captain at Cottesloe during his thirty two years membership.  He is still hard at work, usually seven days a week, but is still a keen Subiaco supporter, and gets to a game when possible.  He also enjoys any time he can spend with wife, Jean, and their two daughters and four grandsons.  Ross Gosden was a top back pocket player at a time when most sides had goalkicking rovers, and, as a defender was one of the best in the League during a fine career with the Maroon and Golds.            

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