Those who were there remember it as quite an innocuous challenge. MK Dons were leading narrowly at Meadow Lane just after the half-hour mark and repelling a Notts County attack when Paul Mitchell, hacking the loose ball up-field, collided with an opponent and ended up in a heap, flailing around on the turf in agony. The lower part of his left leg hung limply, his ankle dislocated. His foot was dangling at an unnatural angle. All the bones β the ankle, where it met the shinbones β were shattered.
There were cracks everywhere. Mitchell was The utility player signed in December , initially on loan from Wigan Athletic , had captained the team in the past, setting standards with his industry and endeavour rather than natural ability. The specialist talking him through the scans suggested it was unlikely he would ever play again given the severity of the fractures to his tibia, fibula and ankle. His team-mates, knowing the man, were not so sure.
Over a painful rehabilitation which dragged through the next 18 months, Mitchell strived to prove the doctors wrong. He had that desire and commitment⦠No, it was probably more like sheer bloody-mindedness. Even managing that was a huge achievement. To be back on a pitch was a minor miracle and all down to his stubborn refusal to believe it was over.
It was too bad an injury. He was so intent on making an impression on football that, when one career was snatched away from him, he bloody well made sure he excelled in a different way. Indeed, the role Mitchell played in securing talents as jaw-dropping as Sadio Mane and Dele Alli, Christopher Nkunku and Vanderson, as well as restructuring and revitalising recruitment departments around the globe, has ensured he is mentioned in dispatches whenever a Premier League club decide there might be something in this self-sustainability lark after all.
It has not all been plain sailing in the south of France. Within the game, his reputation still precedes him. Mitchell is considered an innovator. A workaholic. An organiser. As he has publicly acknowledged, recruitment is not an exact science and there is no sporting director out there who can claim to be infallible or to have entirely mastered such a volatile and competitive market.
