Neil Mitchell may require knee reconstruction after big injury

From what started as harmless fun has seen radio great Neil Mitchell in bed for days with a big injury that may require an operation.

A knee injury has sidelined recently retired radio legend Neil Mitchell Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Tireless newshound Neil Mitchell is recovering after being flattened by a burly boxer and their mate.

Mitchell is facing a potential knee reconstruction after the bruising encounter.

“I have been on my back for a week and a half,” the former host of 3AW mornings said.

Mitchell’s assailants were boxers of the four, not two, legged kind.

“We have been fostering a boxer, an eight month old boxer, for friends. It is a beautiful little dog, lovely temperament, and we, of course, have our own boxer,” Mitchell said.

“She (the guest dog) weighs 18 kgs and he (Mitchell’s dog) weighs about 28 kgs.

“We were out running them around in the backyard. (I) called them to come on inside and they thought they would have one last wrestle.

“So they wrestled and the combined weight of them crashed into my knee, which is dodgy any way from football and is very unstable.”

Neil Mitchell has been left battered and bruised after two dogs crushed his knee Picture: Jake Nowakowski

The tangle left Mitchell with a torn medial ligament and bruising.

“It was not the dogs’ fault, it was my fault,” he said.

“I have needed a knee replacement on that knee for years, so this will probably bring it forward. I have just been whimping it.

“I would have been safer in the studio.”

Mitchell hasn’t been twiddling his thumbs since handing over the AW morning shift, after more than three decades in the job, to Tom Elliott.

He has been recording podcasts, appearing on Jacqui Felgate’s drive show and letting his opinions fly on X (formerly Twitter).

So far he has waded into debates about footy clubs calling for an Australia Day date change, politicians telling porkies, Novak Djokovic and Covid, and Victoria’s skyrocketing debt.

Other than wishing him well, Mitchell has declined to pass comment on his replacement, Elliott, and how the new show is sounding.

“It would not be fair for me to be analysing Tom. He is his own man and he will settle in and do as he likes,” Mitchell said.