Neil Nicholas Mitchell is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 former professional footballer.

Playing career

Mitchell, a central midfielder

Midfielder

A midfielder is an association football position. Some midfielders play a more defensive role, while others blur the boundaries between midfielders and forwards. The number of midfielders a team uses during a match may vary, depending on the team's formation and each individual player's role...

, began his career as a trainee with Blackpool

Blackpool F.C.

Blackpool Football Club are an English football club founded in 1887 from the Lancashire seaside town of Blackpool. They are competing in the 2011–12 season of the The Championship, the second tier of professional football in England, having been relegated from the Premier League at the end of the...

 in 1991. He remained at Bloomfield Road

Bloomfield Road

Bloomfield Road is an all-seater football stadium in the English town of Blackpool, Lancashire. It has been the permanent home of Blackpool F.C. since 1901 and is named after the road on which the stadium's main entrance used to stand. The stadium has been in a process of redevelopment since 2000...

 for five years, making 67 league appearances and scoring eight goals. He was sent on loan to Rochdale

Rochdale A.F.C.

Rochdale Association Football Club is an English professional football club based in Rochdale, Greater Manchester. They play their home matches at Spotland Stadium. Formed in 1907, they were accepted into the Football League in 1921...

 in the 1995–96 season where he made his debut on 9 December 1995 against Doncaster Rovers

Doncaster Rovers F.C.

Doncaster Rovers Football Club is an English football club, based at the Keepmoat Stadium in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. The team currently competes in the Football League Championship, after being promoted via the League One play-offs in 2008, and have remained there since.The club was founded in...

 and made four appearances. In March 1996 he joined Southport

Southport F.C.

Southport Football Club are an English football club, based in Southport, Merseyside. They are currently in the Conference National, and play their home matches at Haig Avenue, which has a capacity of 6,008...

 on loan.

He signed for Sammy McIlroy

Sammy McIlroy

Samuel Baxter "Sammy" McIlroy is a former Northern Ireland international footballer whose clubs included Manchester United....

's Macclesfield Town

Macclesfield Town F.C.

Macclesfield Town Football Club is an English football team. The club was formed in 1874 and is based in the town of Macclesfield in Cheshire. The team play its home games at the 6,355 capacity Moss Rose stadium...

, who were then in the Conference

Football Conference

The Football Conference is a football league in England which consists of three divisions called Conference National, Conference North, and Conference South. Some Football Conference clubs are fully professional, such as Luton Town, but most of them are semi-professional...

 in August 1996. The Silkmen won promotion to the Football League that season. However, after playing just five games for Macclesfield in two years, Mitchell moved back to the Lancashire coast with Morecambe

Morecambe F.C.

Morecambe Football Club is an English football club based in Morecambe, Lancashire. It plays its football in League Two, the fourth division of English football, having been promoted in 2007 for the first time in their history to the Football League. They played their home matches at Christie Park...

, then in the Conference, on 9 February 1998. He also went on to play for Northern Premier League

Northern Premier League 1998-99

The 1998–99 Northern Premier League season was the 31st in the history of the Northern Premier League, a football competition in England. Teams were divided into two divisions; the Premier and the First...

 club Chorley

Chorley F.C.

Chorley Football Club are a football club from Chorley, Lancashire, England. They were founded as a rugby union club in 1875 but switched to football in 1883. They have reached the FA Cup second round twice in 1986–87 and 1990–91. Their best performance in the FA Trophy was in 1995–96 when they...

.

Post-retirement

Now retired from professional football Mitchell lives back on the Fylde coast

The Fylde

The Fylde ; Scandinavian: "field") is a coastal plain in western Lancashire, England. It is roughly a 13-mile square-shaped peninsula, bounded by Morecambe Bay to the north, the Ribble estuary to the south, the Irish Sea to the west, and the Bowland hills to the east...

 where he coaches football at local schools with the YMCA

YMCA

The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...

, and also helps run Youth football tournaments each year.
He also plays Sunday League football

Sunday league football

Sunday league football is a term used in the United Kingdom to describe those association football leagues which play on Sunday, as opposed to the more usual Saturday. These leagues tend to be lower standard amateur competitions, whose players may have less ability, or less time to devote to...

, for Bloomfield Veterans FC, in the Blackpool & Fylde Sunday League Alliance Division One, since July 2004. along with fellow former Blackpool player, Andy Gouck

Andy Gouck

Andrew Scott Gouck is an English former professional footballer who played as a midfielder.- Playing career :...

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External links