The left winger was the man to score the two extra-time goals which won the 1969 Football League Cup Final for Third Division Swindon against First Division Arsenal at Wembley, after all.
Indeed, Rogers’ second goal that day – in which, in the 119th minute, he somehow found the stamina to sprint onto a through-ball, round Bob Wilson and slot into the unguarded net – was to prove a sign of things to come in Palace colours.
Rogers would sign for Bert Head’s First Division Palace side in 1972 and went on to score 30 times in 83 appearances, including twice in that remarkable 5-0 win over Manchester United in December of the same year.
“It was great for the fans, I thought, because Palace had never done anything like that in all their time in the First Division, had they?” Rogers smiled, speaking to Palace TV on the goal's 50th anniversary, back in 2023.
“That day ranks right up the top. It’s probably my best overall game I’ve ever played. That will never go away, that day.”
Yet the Palace goal for which charismatic winger is likely to be best remembered came on this precise date 53 years ago (Saturday, February 17th, 1973): Don Rogers’ Goal of the Season against Stoke City.
With Palace having led 2-0 at half-time through Derek Possee and Alan Whittle, only for Stoke to pull one back early in the second half, a moment of magic was required to restore the two-goal advantage.
And what a goal it was, as Rogers – leading a counter-attack from a Stoke City corner – played a one-two with Whittle inside his own half, raced onto the chipped ball forwards, tied two defenders’ feet in knots and delightfully popped the ball over the onrushing 'keeper John Farmer.
Finishing 3-2 to Rogers' side, it was classic winning goal to match a classic win.
The effort later saw off competition from impressive efforts by QPR’s Stan Bowles, Arsenal’s Charlie George, Tottenham’s John Pratt, West Ham’s Bryan Robson and Chelsea’s Peter Osgood to be awarded the accolade on ITV’s The Big Match.
“I’ve never had such a good view of this before!” Rogers beamed, rewatching his goal. “Never knew I was that far out!
“That was a really good goal, that, but when it got voted Goal of the Season… the people who were doing the voting, who were choosing it… the fellow who worked for one of the papers in London said I didn’t mean to do what I did! I thought ‘you cheeky swine’! I put it over the ‘keeper and he said I didn’t mean to do that. I thought ‘what’s he talking about?!’
“There were a lot of good people in for that Goal [of the Season]. I remember getting a phone call, somebody telling me I’d [won] – I thought ‘oh’! You don’t think about things like that.”
It says much about the moment that, more than 50 years later, we still do.