Caley Thistle boss John Hughes upset by Chris Mitchell's tragic death
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AN emotional John Hughes paid tribute to one of his former players, Chris Mitchell, who died aged just 27 last weekend.
Hughes signed Mitchell for Falkirk in 2006 as a teenager and handed him his debut against St Mirren in April 2007.
Alongside Tam Scobbie, Scott Arfield and Mark Stewart, Mitchell was one of the Bairns' academy products that Hughes and assistant Brian Rice pushed into the first team.
After five years at Falkirk, Mitchell went on to play for Bradford City in England, before returning north to play at Queen of the South for three seasons, where he was managed by current Ross County boss Jim McIntyre. He finished his career with Clyde in February before quitting the game to pursue a career outside of football.
Following Mitchell's boss at Clyde, Barry Ferguson, expressing his sadness at the defender's passing on Saturday, Hughes added his sympathies.
"It's absolutely tragic. I signed the kid from Livingston - I'm starting to get emotional thinking about him. He always had a smile on his face. He was technically fantastic. We had great laughs with him," he said.
"All our thoughts are with the family. It's tragic news."
The current Caley Thistle manager recalled one story that he constantly reminded Mitchell about whenever he saw him.
Falkirk regularly made pre-season trips to Holland during Hughes' time in charge and on one occasion, Mitchell found himself in a sticky situation.
"We were over in Holland for pre-season and him and Scott Arfield, one of his best mates, were part of a group of young lads with the squad," said Hughes.
"I said to them on the last night of the trip that they could have their night out and I told Russell Latapy to keep an eye on them. He's the worst one I could have asked!
"They all ended up in a club and got blootered. Mitch decided to come out and start climbing on cars, unbeknowns to him that one of the cars belonged to the club owner. The bouncers got him and he got arrested.
"I got a bang on my door at 3am saying Chris had been arrested. Some of us had a drink earlier, so we had to wake the waiter up to drive us to the police station to pick Chris up.
"We did that and went to get him - but the police breathalysed the waiter and he'd been drinking too, so he got chucked into jail and we got Chris out!
"They said there'd be no charges and he could sleep it off but the waiter got done for drunk-driving! Every time I saw him I kept reminding him of that."
