Anton Rippon

Anton Rippon (born 20 December 1944) is a British award-winning newspaper columnist, journalist, author and publisher.

He was born in Derby during the Second World War[1] and grew up there. He has spent almost all his working life in the newspaper and publishing industry including working as a reporter for the Derby Evening Telegraph and as a feature writer for the Nottingham Evening Post. He was a football writer for the Sunday Telegraph and editor of the Footballer Magazine. He also edited the Sports Journalists' Association of Great Britain Year Book for 2016 and 2017.

He is the author of 40 books, including an autobiographical memoir A Derby Boy,[2] which was published in 2007. His work has appeared in a wide range of national newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, The Times and The Independent and he has written radio documentaries for the BBC.

In 1982, he founded Breedon Books,[3] the sports and history publisher that he sold in 2003 to resume writing full-time. In 1993, the Derby County Former Professional Players' Association elected him an honorary member, and in 2015 named him as the recipient of its annual merit award for services to the club. He is also a member of the Sports Journalists' Association, the International Society of Olympic Historians and the Football Writers' Association. His book Gunter Plüschow: Airman, Escaper, Explorer,[4] was published by Pen & Sword in 2009. A collection of his columns[5] from the Derby Telegraph – A Derby View – was published by Wharncliffe in October 2010.[6] He is a member of the Malayan Volunteers Group.[7] His forebears include Major Sir Richard Whieldon Barnett MP, who represented Great Britain at rifle shooting in the 1908 Olympic Games; Thomas Whieldon, the respected potter and business partner of Josiah Wedgwood.

In 2016 the University of Derby awarded him an honorary master's degree for services to journalism.

Rippon was named Columnist of the Year in the 2017 Midlands Media Awards.[8]

He is a judge for the British Sports Journalism Awards, and the Midlands Media Student Awards.

In April 2019 Reach (formerly Trinity Mirror), citing financial cutbacks, ended his freelance contract with the Derby Telegraph, bringing to an end the column that he had written every week for the past 20 years (over 1,000 in all) as well as the Derby County column that he had written for the past 10 years. Rippon then signed a four-book deal with Pen & Sword Publishers. The first of those titles Britain 1940: The Decisive Year on the Home Front was published in March 2020.

During the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, he temporarily resumed his weekly Derby Telegraph column under the title 'Anton in Lockdown'.

Selected bibliography
  • Folktales and Legends of Derbyshire, Minimax, 1982, ISBN 978-0-906791-20-2
  • Gas Masks for Goal Posts: football in Britain during the Second World War, Sutton, 2005, ISBN 978-0-7509-4030-6
  • Hitler's Olympics: the story of the 1936 Nazi Games, Pen & Sword military classics (Series), Pen & Sword, 2006, ISBN 978-1-84415-444-9
  • A Derby View: the best of Anton Rippon, Wharncliffe, 2010, ISBN 1-84563-137-4
  • 2014 How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On: True stories from the Home Front, Michael O'Mara ISBN 178243190X
  • Gunter Plüschow: Airman, Escaper, Explorer, Pen & Sword, 2009, ISBN 978-1848841321

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Britain-1940-Hardback/p/17296


References
  1. Derby Evening Telegraph
  2. gdace. "Thanks for the book memories". Thisisderbyshire.co.uk. Retrieved 25 October 2010.
  3. cvjones. "Last chapter for Breedon Books". Thisisderbyshire.co.uk. Retrieved 25 October 2010.
  4. "Gunther Pluschow: Airman, Escaper, Explorer, Anton Rippon". Historyofwar.org. Retrieved 25 October 2010.
  5. "Anton Rippon". Antonrippon.thisisderbyshire.co.uk. 21 September 1949. Archived from the original on 12 September 2010. Retrieved 2010-10-25.
  6. Hawley, Zena (11 October 2010). "No one spared in collection of Anton's acerbic observations". Thisisderbyshire.co.uk. Retrieved 25 October 2010.
  7. "WHEN Anton Rippon takes part in a service to mark the 65th anniversary of VJ Day on August 15, he will be completing another chapter in a family mystery that took years to solve". Thisisderbyshire.co.uk. Retrieved 25 October 2010.
  8. "SJA member Rippon takes 2017 columnist of the year prize". sportsjournalists.co.uk. 3 November 2017.
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