Peter Kitchen

[Colin C No.3]

Kitch had Mike Elwiss as a strike partner too for 2 or 3 seasons in the early 70’s.

There was two years between them (Kitch being the elder) & it’s interesting how their two careers panned out.

When Elwiss broke into the side as an 18 year old from the youth team in the 71/72 season he scored 2 goals on his debut at home. I can remember him scoring so early in games that if you weren’t in ‘position’ by the time kick off came you’d miss his first goal!

They played together in 73/74 season the highlight of which was the never to be forgotten fixture when we drew Liverpool in the FA Cup at Anfield the then current League Champions.
 Liverpool took the lead with a goal from Donny born Keegan (was he really turned down by Rovers because he was deemed to be too small or is that an urban myth?), Kitch then restored Rovers lead only for Keegan to score again but Big Bren scored to make it 2-2 & in the dying minutes Rovers hit the woodwork robbing them of a famous victory.

Elwiss left Rovers in 1974 for a then record fee for the club of £70,000 to PNE. He’d scored 30 goals for Rovers in 97 appearances (figures gleaned from Tony Bluff & Barry Watsons excellent book ‘Donny. The Official History Of. Elwiss played for Preston for 4 seasons before moving on to Crystal Palace for £200,000 (no sell on clause for us of course!). He played for them for 2 seasons helping them to gain promotion to the First Division in his 2nd season but a persistent knee injury put paid to his footballing career in 1980.

Kitch on the other hand stayed at Rovers for another 3 seasons before a £40,000 move to Orient. He’d scored 90 goals for Rovers in 228 appearances. He was top scorer for Orient in his first season with 21 league goals plus 7 in the FA Cup which saw them beat Chelsea & Middlesbrough on the way to the semi final.

Our kid met up with Kitch last seasat a game & Kitch was telling him about his career. He said that after the Middlesbrough game (in which he scored) he met up with Bobby Robson who had tried to sign him before he moved to Orient. Kitch said Ipswich offered £35k for him & Robson said he couldn’t offer anymore because the club had just bought Paul Mariner & Mick Mills. Rovers wanted £70k so the deal broke down. Bobby Robson told Kitch he had followed his career since & told him he was the finest footballer he’d never signed.

Kitch moved onto Fulham after just 2 seasons at Orient signing for a fee of £150k (again no sell on clause!) but when Fulham changed managers Kitch fell out of favour & was dropped to the reserves where he scored 31 goals but was never called back into the first XI despite Fulham languishing at the foot of the table. Kitch moved onto Cardiff in 1980 for £100k. He scored 21 goals for them in 67 appearances.

Two fantastic Rovers strikers who happened to come along in the same era, both Donny born & products of the youth set up at the time which also produced Stan Brookes & Steve Uzelac.

I doubt we’ll be ‘blessed’ with two better locally born strikers playing together again.

They were both a joy to watch.

Great post, CC3. Point of order though; we were actually 2-1 up at HT at Anfield. Keegan equalised in the second half.

Hold me hands up to that ss.