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Bob Cass, football writer admired by all, has died

Bob Cass, the former Sun and Mail on Sunday football reporter, has died after a long battle with cancer.

Bob Cass
Bob Cass

The Football Writers’ Association announced the news on Thursday, describing Cass as “one of our most revered members”. A former FWA chairman, Cass was “one of the finest journalists in its history”, they said.

SJA member and friend Jim Mossop, in a tribute, said, “To know Robert Stanley Cass was one of life’s privileges.

“He was a champion; a true friend of the human race. As a gatherer of football news stories he was unsurpassed. His contacts were from every corner of the football world. He was a journalist you could trust with your life and people knew that as soon as they met him. The trust was unspoken.

‘To know Robert Stanley Cass was one of life’s privileges’

“If you saw the words “Exclusive…by Bob Cass” you knew instantly there was true substance in what you were reading. Football folk loved him. He had humour, compassion and knowledge.”

Among the many tributes paid to Cass on social media, Paul Hayward, the SJA’s Sportswriter of the Year, wrote: “Whenever we discussed Bob Cass, Sir Alex Ferguson would say with a warmth that always struck me: ‘He’s a great lad, Cassy.’ Said it all.”

Brought up in the north-east, Cass began his journalism career on The Northern Echo. He was married with three children, who were at his bedside at his home in Durham.

The officers, committee and whole of the SJA sends their deepest condolences to Janet and their three children Alison, Jennifer and Simon, and to the rest of Bob’s family, friends and colleagues.

We will publish funeral arrangement details once they are known.

Click here to readJim Mossop’s tribute in full.