Mitchell Archie Image 4 Queen’s Park Rangers 1920

Description

Smethwick, Staffordshire born centre half Archie Mitchell started his football career with Oldbury St John’s and had been on Aston Villa’s books as a 20 year old in 1905 without making a first team appearance, albeit he won England junior international honours, and helped the Villa reserve team to win the Birmingham & District League title in the 1905-06 and 1906-07 seasons, before he then joined Southern League club Queen’s Park Rangers in the summer of 1907. He had a good start to his career with The Hoops, winning the 1907-08 Southern League Championship in his debut season.

A further Southern League Championship was won in 1911-12, with Mitchell playing in the 1912 FA Charity Shield match at White Hart Lane, which was lost 2-1 to League Champions Blackburn Rovers. He appeared 7 times for The Southern League, and once, in 1921, for The Football League in a 4-1 win over the Army on 10th November 1921, captaining The Southern League against The Football League in 1913-14.

He remained with Queens Park Rangers through to 1921, finally making his Football League debut for the newly elected Third Division club at Watford in September 1920 already aged 34, scoring 3 goals in 37 appearances for The Hoops as QPR finished 3rd in the table in their inaugural Football League season. After 12 goals in 331 appearances over his 14 years at Loftus Road (excluding appearances in unofficial wartime competitions Mitchell also made), he moved to Brentford as player-manager in August 1921, scoring 3 goals in 16 appearances during 1921-22 with the final appearance of his career coming as a goalkeeper in the final away league game of the season away to Swansea Town, before hanging up his boots and continuing as Brentford manager until December 1924. After a spell as manager of Dartford, he subsequently became Queen’s Park Rangers’ manager holding the post from October 1931 until May 1933.