Rogers set to join elite list

AHEAD of what will be the 500th league appearance of his career against Waterford FC on Friday night, Gary Rogers insists he has no intention of hanging up his gloves any time soon.

The 36-year-old will move into the top 10 in the all-time league appearances list when he takes his place between the sticks at Oriel Park on Friday night, putting him level with former Home Farm, Athlone Town, Bohemians and Drogheda Utd stalwart Jim Grace.

Barring any fitness or form issues, the experienced netminder should move up to sixth in the list before the end of the season but while he will still remain some way off Al Finucane’s record of 634 league appearances, Rogers has not dismissed the idea of surpassing that figure after insisting he can go on into his 40s.

‘Definitely not,’ he said when asked was retirement on the cards any time soon.

‘I’m looking at having a good season this year with Dundalk and hopefully staying there next year and the year after. My aim is to play as long as I can.

‘ I really think I’m at the top club in the country now and there’s a long way to go to get to the bottom club. I don’t intend on going that route but if I continue to play well, continue to enjoy my football and don’t pick up any injuries my intention is to play as long as I can and rack up as many appearances as possible.’

It’s a league where the goalkeepers considered the best at present are in their mid-to-late 30s. The reigning Goalkeeper of the Year, Mark McNulty, is more than a year older than Rogers while Derry City’s Ger Doherty, who featured in last season’s PFAI Team of the Year, is just a month his junior.

Rogers admits to being a big fan of Italian legend Gianluigi Buffon, who is still going strong for Juventus at the age of 40, and sees no reason why he can’t achieve similar.

‘The lads you mentioned are all doing really well,’ he said of McNulty and Doherty.

‘I’d be a massive fan of Buffon. You look at the quality he has had throughout his career and he’s 40 now and yet he’s still playing at the top level. That shows it can be done so it’s just about maintaining your standards and doing things right on and off the pitch. Hopefully then the manager picks you.

‘When you’re at my stage of your career, a bad injury could finish you. I’m well aware of that but my intention is to try and stay as fit as possible, enjoy my football and see where it takes me. Barring any serious injury I’ll be looking to continue my career for another two, three or four years possibly.

‘When I made my first appearance I never thought I’d make as many as I have. When you make your first appearance you don’t even know if you’re good enough to play League of Ireland even so it’s great to be still playing and enjoying it and doing well.’

While Rogers started out in the League of Ireland with Shelbourne in 1999, it wasn’t until October 2000 when he made his league debut in a 2-1 defeat away to Sligo Rovers after going on loan to St Francis.

The Bohermeen man admitted to The Argus that he came close to not even playing League of Ireland at all having been called into the Meath GAA senior panel as an 18-year-old back in 2000 by the legendary Sean Boylan. However, fate would intervene as a red card for his club St Ultan’s in a Leinster Club Championship match meant he was dropped from the panel.

‘My GAA history Is kind of mixed,’ he said.

‘Around 1999/2000 I was on the Meath senior panel. Sean Boylan had brought me in after my local club had won the Junior Championship. I was half-forward or centre forward but I got sent off in a Leinster Club Championship game.

‘I was giving the referee some friendly advice and he wasn’t really appreciative of it,’ he laughed.

‘Back then you got suspended for three months as opposed to one game and because of that I was basically released off the Meath senior squad because there was no point in being there when you couldn’t play for three months.

‘I didn’t go back to it then until Dublin City went bust in 2006. Colm Coyle gave me a couple of starts at that stage in the National League and my club went and won another Junior Championship that year. I won a green star and got back on the

Meath senior team.

‘On a couple of occasions I nearly stepped away from football for the GAA but

I’m glad with the decisions I made. Galway Utd came about in 2007 when I was still in with the Meath senior panel. Tony Cousins came to me wanting me to go to Galway. At the time I was unsure but it was an opportunity to play full-time football and I went to Galway as

opposed to staying with the GAA.’ So had it not been for that red card would we be even talking right now? ‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘It was kind of in the balance because I was doing the two at the time, training with Shelbourne’s first team and as a young keeper I knew I wasn’t going to get in any time soon. I suppose a combination of going on loan to St Francis and actually getting games and then the sending off with my local club probably played its part in the role I took.’

Rogers has family ties to Dundalk FC with his uncle Liam Devine playing a key part in the club’s double success of 1978/79 before going on to score goals in the respective European wins over Linfield and Hibernians of Malta. Sadly Liam’s career, which included a five season spell at Shelbourne prior to his arrival at Oriel, was ended by a cancer diagnosis at the age of 29 that would ultimately leading to his passing in September 1980.

The young Gary was just shy of his first birthday at the time but the passing would have a huge role in him becoming a goalkeeper. The tragedy led to Liam’s son Lee spending more and more time in the Rogers household and it was him who decided his cousin should be a goalkeeper. ‘We would always have been out playing on the pitch beside me. He was five or six years older than me so I was the goalkeeper for his shooting practice.

‘That’s how I really got into it and I always really enjoyed it. I suppose he would have a big part to play in my interest in goalkeeping. I was able to mix the two because I played all my Gaelic outfield and all my soccer in goals barring a few exceptions.’

Another target of Rogers in the year ahead is to either equal or surpass his PFAI colleague Ollie Cahill’s record of 41 appearances in Europe. He currently sits on 35 with a guaranteed two matches for Dundalk likely to see him surpass Stuart Byrne on 36 and move joint second with Dan Murray and Owen Heary on 37. Having got the bug for European adventures in recent years, Rogers would love nothing more than another journey this season.

‘It’s certainly something I’d like to do as well,’ he said when asked about Cahill’s record.

‘Playing in Europe is the pinnacle for anybody in this league. We’ve had great times and great success in Europe over the last few years and we’ll be looking to continue that this year and hopefully I can add to that tally.

‘You need to be fit and playing well when European football comes around but generally we do try to peak for Europe and that will be the same this year. Hopefully we’ll pick up a couple of wins because European football is great for the league. It captures the imagination of the wider public, not just League of Ireland supporters so it’s important that we do well in Europe. There’s nothing like getting a couple of wins in that.’

His contract might be up at the end of the season but after keeping his 50th clean sheet in the league for Dundalk in what was his 93rd appearance against Cork City last Friday, Rogers is hopeful of still being at Oriel Park for the foreseeable future.

‘Dundalk is a great club to be at. It would be a local club to me along with with Drogheda and I have family ties with the club in terms of supporters and my uncle played with the club. It’s certainly my intention to stay.

‘Obviously it will be down to the manager down the line but there’ll be no talk of that just yet. When I came to the club my intention was to play here as long as I could and hopefully maybe retire at the club down the line but we’ll wait and see what contracts come later in the year.’

Friday will be a landmark night for Rogers but that is just a sub-plot for him. His main goal is three points.

‘I’m not one bit surprised how well Waterford are doing,’ he said.

‘I really thought they would come up and do well. They were a Premier Division side in the First Division and they’ve added more quality to it so it’s not surprising at all how well they’ve done. It will be a tough, tough challenge but we’ll be at home and we’re coming off the back of a really good home result so we’ll be looking to take all three points as we will in every game.

‘I think if we can play to our potential then hopefully we’ll have enough about us to go and get the win but Waterford have done really well since they’ve come up and we know we’ll be in for a tough game.’