Personal Style
Rogers was captain in 89 of the 119 first-class matches he appeared in. His instincts appear to have been largely attacking, and he had a limited and ageing side at his disposal. David Foot, the historian of Somerset cricket, wrote: "The crowd quite liked him, though he wasn't wholly one of the boys." Foot records the senior professional, Horace Hazell, being taken out for drinks at restaurants by Rogers and returning "as drunk as a handcart". But Eric Hill, one of the young players of the time and later the doyen of the Taunton press box, "feels that Rogers probably lacked rapport with the younger professionals". Hill records, in Foot's book, Rogers ordering a curfew of 10 o'clock in a match against Hampshire: "The skipper plotted his evening accordingly and staggered up to bed at half-past nine... more drunk than anyone I've ever seen in my life."
As was sometimes the custom of the 1950s, Rogers was nominally the secretary as well as the captain of Somerset, though the secretarial duties appear to have been undertaken by a succession of retired military gentlemen. The arrangement would have allowed Rogers to draw a salary while maintaining his amateur status.
Read more about this topic: Stuart Rogers
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