Owen Rogers thought he had saved his last goal a few years ago.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
But when it comes to retiring, plans have a funny knack of changing.
For Rogers the catalyst was relocating to Tamworth.
The Penrith native moved up in January to manage Mick Martin Electronic Security.
"I thought moving to Tamworth it (football) was the best way to make friends (he only knew Martin)," he said.
"Football is a family no matter where you are."
READ ALSO:
And so he dug out his keeping gloves, and thanks to a fortuitous chance encounter is suiting up for Tamworth FC in what is his first season of competitive football since 2016.
Rogers, who played rep football in Sydney from juniors through to his early 20s, initially put the feelers out to Oxley Vale Attunga but didn't hear back from them.
Then he was at Hip Pocket buying a shirt and got chatting to Mick Gay, who performed the keeping duties for FC with Sam Coates last season, about wanting to play football and he steered him in their direction.
"It's been good. I've been with the boys since March," he said.
A striker in his younger junior days, Rogers' future path was cemented when he was cut from a rep team he was hoping to make.
"When I was 14 I tried out for a rep team as a striker. I got cut on the Thursday and came back on the Tuesday as a goalkeeper and made the team," he recalled.
He has played in goal ever since.
On Saturday he chalked up his second straight clean sheet as FC made it three-from-three with a 7-nil win over the previously unbeaten Moore Creek. Rogers is yet to actually have a goal scored against him with the only goal FC have conceded this season an own goal.
He wasn't really too tested.
The Mountain Goats did have a couple of shots in the first half, one of which Rogers thought "was going in", but other than that pretty much any time they looked like threatening, the FC defence, led by Troy Hearfield and Ross Price, shut them down.
Rogers said his job is certainly easier having those two in front of him.
"Troy and Ross are just like a brick wall," he said.
The Mountain Goats competed well in the first half but some poor discipline (they played the last 20 minutes with nine players) and tired legs saw the premiers really take control and run away with the game.
They scored four goals in the last half an hour, with Kurt Barrow finishing with a hat-trick and Ryan Davidson a double.
It was the Mountain Goats' first game against one of the existing premier league teams and a good learning experience coach Dan Murphy said.
"I think this is the benchmark of what the competition's about, and I think it's part of that learning and development for the team and the club," he said.
"I really think as a club and a team we'll definitely grow from this."
He added they will take away a lot from that first 50 minutes or so. At 3-nil he felt they were "still in the game", but then "just a lack of discipline in that second half" let them down.
