Barnes, Phil ('Rover')
Phil Barnes, who went by the pen name of 'Rover', reported on Exeter City for the Football Express from the club's earliest days until the suspension of football for the Great War. His reports and stories were often illustrated by his own cartoons.
Phil Barnes first reported on the amateur Exeter City during the Edwardian era at a time when there were a number of local sports writers including 'Spec' of the Devon Evening News. With the Devon and Exeter Gazette also providing coverage, an early example of Phil Barnes' work - a cartoon drawn on the eve of City's first Southern League campaign for the Football Express - can be found in Aidan Hamilton's The Story of Exeter's St James' Park. The book then goes on to relate Rover's memories of St James' Park from the start of the 1906/07 campaign, when the Football Express was launched, through until a few months before the outbreak of the Great War.
Also writing for the Express and Echo, the Football Express's parent publication, Mr Barnes continued to report on Exeter City until the suspension of football for the duration of hostilities. Subsequently appointed as sports editor of the Bristol Evening News, he passed the Exeter City reporter's baton to Cyril Payne who wrote under the name of 'The Chiel'.
Phil Barnes first reported on the amateur Exeter City during the Edwardian era at a time when there were a number of local sports writers including 'Spec' of the Devon Evening News. With the Devon and Exeter Gazette also providing coverage, an early example of Phil Barnes' work - a cartoon drawn on the eve of City's first Southern League campaign for the Football Express - can be found in Aidan Hamilton's The Story of Exeter's St James' Park. The book then goes on to relate Rover's memories of St James' Park from the start of the 1906/07 campaign, when the Football Express was launched, through until a few months before the outbreak of the Great War.
Also writing for the Express and Echo, the Football Express's parent publication, Mr Barnes continued to report on Exeter City until the suspension of football for the duration of hostilities. Subsequently appointed as sports editor of the Bristol Evening News, he passed the Exeter City reporter's baton to Cyril Payne who wrote under the name of 'The Chiel'.
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