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Articles by Rex Mitchell

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About Rex Mitchell

Rex Mitchell is a Brentford supporter from childhood. This has not prevented him having a distinguished Fleet Street career as a sports reporter and later deputy football editor. A widower, Rex is a bit of a bandit golfer off his official handicap of 20 and is currently chairman of his local bowls club. More Posts

The Cup Final

The Cup Final as already observed by Gerald Ingolby was a dull affaire that did little to enhance a competition that has seen better days. The reasons for the decline of the FA Cup are well documented: the plethora of televised football; the lack of a Champions League place for the winner; the [...]

May 22, 2016 // 0 Comments

Who knows best

When I started to write for the Rust I was attracted by the fact that supporters as much as sportswriters contributed. Over the years I have found and used a cadre of loyal fans who know as much if not more than those that have played the game. After the Brighton victory I had a long chat with [...]

April 22, 2016 // 0 Comments

Manchester United 1 Liverpool 1

Watching this game last night I was struck how far in terms of team building both sides are from being a trophy winning team. Liverpool were the better team over two legs and deservedly went through. However they do not look capable of beating Jurgen Klopp’s old team Borussia Dortmined nor [...]

March 18, 2016 // 0 Comments

British clubs Brexit?

It looks like when the Brexit campaign is in full swing there will be at best two British clubs left in Europe, Manchester City and one of Liverpool and Manchester United. It was a British club, Glasgow Celtic, that broke the hegemony of Southern Europe by winning the European Cup  in 1967 after [...]

March 11, 2016 // 0 Comments

Ernest Erbstein

Ii doubt if the name Ernest Erbstein, commonly known as Egri-Erbstein, strikes a chord with many football readers. Of our staffers only Stefano had heard of him and spoke of him in the reverential terms normally reserved for Fiorentina. He led a life that would have broken most and is the father of [...]

March 2, 2016 // 0 Comments

They will never pay so much again

My sympathies lie with the Liverpool fans who demonstrated last Saturday against the £77 highest ticket price. That most of the tickets had not risen and this is the price of a best seat was significantly lower than London Premier prices was not so much the issue as the reluctance of clubs awash [...]

February 10, 2016 // 0 Comments

Transfer window

We asked our various football correspondents to comment on the transfer window: Rex Mitchell I  never enjoyed the last day of the window. Working on a national daily, I hated sucking up to agents, pulling favours from managers and hanging around the car parks of  cold, wet training centres for a [...]

February 4, 2016 // 0 Comments

Liverpool 3 Arsenal 3

I am not a huge fan of modern Premiership soccer. The analysis on tv and radio is poor and under informed, the coverage in the press has reached saturation point, the whole social media thing grates on me.  Every year teams change as if dealt a fresh deck of cards. I found that I could name the [...]

January 14, 2016 // 0 Comments

Klapp trap

On balance overseas managers have improved our domestic soccer. Men like Arsene Wenger have improved the training, diet, fitness and attitude of his players and transformed Arsenal from a team known for its dull, percentage football (one nil to the Arsenal) to a fluid attractive side that have [...]

December 26, 2015 // 0 Comments

The Big Match revisited

Retro seventies ITV televison is all the rage in the Rust and these past few days I’ve been tuning into The Big Match Revisited broadcast at 6am. It’s being shown chronologically and we are now at December 1979. Two things interested me: how has football changed and how has its [...]

December 17, 2015 // 0 Comments

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