West Bromwich Albion are deeply saddened to learn of the loss of Doctor Roger Rimmer, a man whose relationship with the club dated back to 1958.
He served as Club Doctor for 38 years before heading into retirement, whereupon he became an Honorary Life Member of the club and continued to be a fixture at home and away games, as well as plenty of youth fixtures too. Albion will wear black armbands in his memory in tomorrow’s game at Coventry City.
West Bromwich born and bred, he qualified as a doctor in 1955 and worked at Hallam Hospital, which later became Sandwell General. He then moved into group practice where one of the doctors, Dr James Mitchell, was about to retire. Mitchell was the Albion doctor and as an avid fan, Roger went with him to games, got to know everyone and later remarked, “I was delighted to be asked if I would follow in his footsteps in 1958.”
It was a very different era, with ‘the Doc’ looking after both teams and the crowd on matchdays. In a normal week, he would visit The Hawthorns on a Friday to tend to any players, as well as doing house visits if needed during the week.
He recalled that, “It was a very different time then and players were dependent on playing games to earn appearance money and win bonuses hopefully, and so they didn’t like being on the injured list. It wasn’t just that, they always wanted to play and folks like John Wile and Alistair Robertson never wanted to miss a game under any circumstances, so they’d always be pushing you to pass them fit.”
There were dramatic moments during his tenure, such as when Asa Hartford’s transfer to Leeds United was scrapped because of a pinhole found in Asa’s heart, a decision that Rimmer described as “scandalous”, and he was wrongly implicated in Willie Johnston’s failed drugs test at the World Cup in 1978, a period he understandably found extremely distressing.
But much of his time with the Throstles was a joy, through until retirement on his 65th birthday in 1995. He even provided the Club with his successor, daughter Judith taking on his role for seven years. Rightly made an Honorary Life Member of the Club, all those who met Dr. Rimmer in his lifetime of service to the Throstles will recall his kindness and generosity, and his unfailing, often tinder dry sense of humour, an anecdote often ending with a wry one liner delivered with a twinkle in the eye, such as this one.
“I remember doing a medical for the Chambers twins when they joined the club as youngsters. They were identical, they dressed alike, they had the same hairstyle at the time, everything.
“Their father was sitting in the dressing room waiting for them as I did the one medical after the other, and when I came out, I said to him, ‘I think they’ve pulled my leg and made me give a medical to the same one twice. Mind you, I shall look a fool because I’ve passed one and failed the other!”
Rest easy, Doc.
