The Rover Football Club played its first recorded game 7 April 1895, Many years before the GNFL was formed in 1960. Although Rover Football Club is over 100 years old we weren’t always RED and BLACK, We weren’t always called Rovers and we weren’t always at Greenough Oval, it wasn’t until 1976 Rovers built and moved to its home now GREENOUGH Oval.

In 1994, John Sims was named coach and he proved to be the right man for the job. True, he had the players, there’s never been a successful coach yet who hasn’t, but his record over the next six years was one any coach would envy. In his time, Rovers won 92 of 109 games – a win ratio of 84 percent including 10 wins in 13 finals and most importantly, four premierships.

The only task harder in coaching than running a weak side is to take over a strong one as expectations are invariably high and sometimes unrealistic. Whether that concerned Craig Spence, Rovers new coach in 2000, is not known but Spence, very much his own man, was determined Rovers would continue to produce the goods. Once again, Towns and Rovers set the pace in a season that had just 14 qualifying rounds, the shortest season on record aside from the GNFL’s foundation years of 1961 and 1962 when there were 12 rounds.

Towns were favoured in the Grand Final just as Rovers had been the year before and just like Rovers, Towns were destined to finish on the losing end. Rovers trailed by 10 points at the long break but came out full of fire in the third term to tally seven goals to one to burst to a 19-point advantage. Towns were spent and Spence’s team pulled further away in the last quarter as Rovers completed a 35-point triumph.

In 2017 Ian Comben made the surprise move to Rovers to assist Erin McCartney making a top 4 spot was what we would call a success after years on the bottom. In 2018 Comben took the role as head coach with Craig Walker as assistant. The pair took control of the demons and off to a grand final they went, after being the strongest team all year and finishing on top of the ladder they fell short on the big day.

Comben, not to be defeated, put his hand up in 2019 and 2020 and these were years our club will never forget, Comben lead the team to BACK 2 BACK premierships, breaking consecutive winning streaks and going undefeated in 2020, what can he do in 2021.