Alan Rogers: How my Portsmouth trademark was inspired by a Germany World Cup winner

And Alan Rogers has revealed his source of inspiration was Germany and Borussia Mönchengladbach midfielder Rainer Bonhof.

The left-sided player was a fixture in Frank Burrows’ team which earned promotion from Division Four in 1979-80.

Remarkably, he was still a mainstay when the Blues, then managed by Bobby Campbell, claimed the Division Three title in 1982-83

In a 2015 interview for Played Up Pompey, Rogers, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018, revealed how he developed his eye-catching party piece.

‘Rainer Bonhof laid on Gerd Muller’s goal, which ensured Germany lifted the 1974 World Cup following a 2-1 victory over Holland,’ he told Played Up Pompey.

‘He was also the inspiration behind what has often been said was my trademark – the step over.

‘It was the summer of 1975 when my club Plymouth Argyle embarked on a pre-season tour of Germany, during which on a day off we attended a match between Borussia Mönchengladbach and Cologne.

‘Borussia had Bonhof turning out for them, a German international midfielder who, in front of my eyes, produced a trick I had never before seen. The step over was used three or four times and on each occasion I studied it ever closer.

‘So I came back home to Plymouth and practiced it and practiced it in training. It took me a year, I fell over the first time I attempted it, but in the end became pretty proficient.

‘I would drag the ball with my right foot as I was running along and then step over it and knock it with my left and it worked every time.

‘There was no television back then analysing everything, so it was largely a surprise to the opposition full-back. You could call it my party piece!

‘In May 1979, Steve Davey – who I had played with at Plymouth and was now at Pompey – rang and asked if I would be interested in moving to the south coast.

‘Before I signed, I sat with Frank Burrows in the South stand looking at the pitch and he said “If you do your trick you will have 15,000 Pompey fans swaying one way and all falling for it – and they will love it. Just keep doing the trick, they will love it”.

‘There has got to be an end product, there’s no point doing it and then putting the ball out of play. All you needed was a yard, then you could get the ball in.

‘Once I played a game with Fred Binney, who was a prolific goalscorer for Plymouth, and smacked a ball right across the face of goal. I thought it was a great cross, but he gave me such a rollicking.

‘He told me it was so fast he couldn’t get there, instead I should be looking to pass the ball across – and from then on I thought about it. As you get older, you work out what is best.

‘Crossing was my strength, but, because of the margin of error, it was more difficult to pick out a player. So I would purposely underhit it slightly so it would be a great near-post ball, or would slightly overhit it and it would be over the keeper for Billy Rafferty coming in at the far post.

‘It was my lack of accuracy which made them such good balls, if you know what I mean.

‘My percentage was to try to hit the keeper because if they were slightly underhit they were great balls and slightly overhit they were also great balls.

‘There are occasions when I think to myself I should have imposed myself on more matches, sometimes I allowed myself to drift out of a game, but I was a winger, give me the ball and I’m fine.

‘I always had a languid style, not blessed with blistering pace but quick enough to get by and, as a winger, my job was to get the ball into the box. Scoring goals never came into it, I never thought I was a goalscorer.

‘My mindset was to take players on rather than passing it, I enjoyed that side of it.’

Alan Rogers played 190 games for Pompey, scoring 17 times, from May 1979 until January 1984.

Played Up Pompey Too, released in 2017, is still available from Amazon. While Played Up Pompey Three, which contains more of your favourite Blues players, is out later this year.

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