Miscellaneous LFC Stuff...

[Tony Moanero]

1977 European Cup Final match worn shirts.

 

[Tony Moanero]

1977 FA Cup Final match worn shirt. Umbro Aertex fabric shirts were boss.

 

[VladimirIlyich]

On 28/05/2021 at 12:54, Tony Moanero said:

 

'In 1986 while watching the Cup Final with the Everton driver all was fine when they were winning 1-0,but when we went 2-1 up they locked me out of the bus!' Hahaha! Bitters for ever.

[Butch]

[m0e]

On 28/05/2021 at 12:54, Tony Moanero said:

 

His nickname is Helmet, and he is a massive St Helens fan.

 

John Barnes said he loved him during his 10 years at the club, describing him as a "great guy".

 

PS - John Barnes giving us 10 years service without getting a testimonial makes me sad.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Alright, nobheads, who's #Born now?

 

 

(NB - Sharon is married to one of my mates!)

[kemskem]

 

[Harry's Lad]

Wasn't sure where to post this, but here's an excellent article (from the Echo no less) about Craig Johnston.

 

Worst player I've ever seen. Now f*** off' - from sleeping in a shed to Liverpool icon and inventor of Adidas Predator

Craig Johnston travelled across the world to start his football career and built a legacy many others can only dream of which also saw him become a key part of Liverpool glory years

 

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Craig Johnston overcome adversity throughout his life and football career to become one of Liverpool's best-loved former players

 

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“You are the worst player I’ve ever seen in my whole life. Now f*** off.”

The game of football is of course littered with tales of players who overcame setbacks and challenges before going to enjoy successful careers despite doubts over size, mental resilience and of course ability having being levelled against them.

 

But when such a scathing assessment is delivered to a 15-year-old who has travelled halfway across the world to pursue his dream, and by a football legend and World Cup winner no less, it’s clear that serious strength of character will be required to bounce back from it.

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Liverpool over the years have been blessed to have numerous players who have demonstrated that in spades as well as plenty who have displayed above-average intelligence, both on and off the field, but not too many have had as much of both as Craig Johnston, who celebrates his 61st birthday this week.

We’ve become used to seeing a plethora of players from overseas in the modern game but, while Anfield has been home to the occasional foreign player since the 1930s when South Africans Berry ‘Nivvy’ Nieuwenhuys and Arthur Riley plied their trade in front of the Kop, they were very much a minority during the 1970s and 80s and in some circles treated with a certain degree of suspicion.

 

 

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That would certainly go some way to explaining the task at hand facing the South African-born Australian, who would go on to be affectionately nicknamed ‘Skippy’ after a beloved television cartoon kangaroo by the Anfield faithful, when he first arrived in the industrial wastelands of Middlesbrough from Newcastle, New South Wales in 1975.

 

 

 

 

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The fact a teenage Johnston was even able to consider a career in ‘soccer’, as he would no doubt have initially called it given there is an Australian version of football which remains one of that country’s foremost sporting pursuits, is further testament to his capacity to overcome adversity.

 

 

Keen to follow in the footsteps of his father Colin who also loved and played soccer, having trials in the UK for Preston North End and Dundee United, young Craig faced the horrific possibility of losing a leg when he was only a child.

As a result of sustaining an injury during a fight, Johnston developed a form of polio - osteomyelitis - which rotted the bone and at the time was thought to be incurable. Doctors thought they would have to amputate and his mum even signed the consent form agreeing to it before a specialist visiting from America managed to save the limb.

Years later, having seen a touring Middlesbrough side beat his local team he displayed the initiative he would become famed for and wrote to the Teeside club asking for a trial. Despite receiving only a lukewarm reply informing him he would have to pay for his own travel and accommodation, his family downsized their home to raise the funds and a 15-year-old Johnston travelled 10,000 miles across the world to pursue his dream of making it in English football.

He later recalled to BBC Radio Tees Sport Boro Podcast, "I'd never been past Sydney and I was on my own. I got from London up to Middlesbrough and I didn't even have time to find the digs where the trialists stayed. I had to go straight to the game and I was already jetlagged.

"The day before, I was on Nobby's Beach back home, which is a beautiful sandy beach with aqua blue water and palm trees.

"Forty-eight hours later, I'm on Hutton Road in Middlesbrough. It was December, it was snowing and it was muddy."

Plunged straight in his trial match which unusually was attended by the then-Middlesbrough manager Jack Charlton, the teenager received a rude awakening as to the hard road head facing him if his ambitions were to be fulfilled.

With Boro three goals down at half time, the England 1966 World Cup hero marched into the dressing room and began laying into his players. Upon reaching Johnston, he asked where the youngster hailed from and when he was told - with the traditional ‘mate’ added on for good measure - Charlton’s infamous temper exploded with the withering assessment of the young Australian’s abilities and the big Geordie’s suggested course of action being mercilessly delivered and leaving the youngster in tears.

Unable to face playing the second half, Johnston grabbed his bag and headed to where he was told the trialists’ digs would be only to find his nightmare first day in English football was about to get worse.

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"There was a lady called Nina Postgate who ran it”, Johnston recalled.

"In my tears, I explained to Nina that I'd been told to hop it.

"She said: 'I'm sorry, you can't stay here. This is the official digs for the trialists and people who make it. I might lose my job.’”

Taking pity on the crestfallen teenager, she made him beans on toast and a cup of tea, and having considered his predicament offered Johnston some alternative, if not overly appealing, accommodation.

“There's an old coal shed out the back but it's been cleaned out”, she said.

“It's got a radiator and you can stay there overnight but don't say anything.”

A grateful Johnston took up the landlady’s kind offer but was still fearful and unsure how he would be able to explain the devastating developments on the football pitch to his family who had already sacrificed so much to get him this far.

When he managed to get through to his mum on the phone Down Under, her excited first question of “How was your big trial? We’re so proud of you. Have you met Jack Charlton yet?” could only have made him feel even worse.

He didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth and, showing the fiercely independent and determined streak Liverpool supporters would grow to love years later, told her instead, “Yes he loves me, and he thinks I’m one of the finest footballers he’s ever seen”, before putting the phone down.

Johnston’s pride and self-belief meant he could and would not let himself throw the towel in but he knew, however harsh the manager’s assessment had been, it was not without some truth, years later admitting, "The truth of my story was that Jack Charlton was 100% right.

"I couldn't control the ball, I couldn't pass, I couldn't shoot. I just couldn't play.

"I had that realisation in the next couple of days and I was fortunate that Nina was hiding me from everybody. She gave me valuable time to think about how I was going to solve the problem.

"I ended up staying for at least two or three weeks in the coal shed. Maybe it was a month. My parents weren't very wealthy and it was a one-way trip. So I couldn't go home either."

Johnston figured the only way he could prove Jack Charlton wrong to work on and improve his ability and that is what he set about doing, devising a series of drills to improve his basic skills based on four of the main tenets of the game: control, pass, dribble and shoot, which would decades later become a cornerstone of a soccer skills programme he designed to roll out to youngsters across the world.

Hour after hour over a period of months Johnston trained on his own in the Middlesbrough car park, dribbling in and out of a line of rubbish cans to slowly but surely hone his abilities. Many of those observing him thought he was crazy and wasting his time but among the first team players at Ayresome Park at the time who thought Charlton’s treatment of the young Aussie had been harsh and were impressed at his determination to try and make it in the game anyway was a young Graeme Souness.

The Scottish midfielder had endured a similar difficult time at his first senior club, Tottenham, and along with England international defender Terry Cooper helped Johnston top up his meagre wages by paying him to clean their cars and perhaps more importantly making him feel part of things and encouraging him to believe he could have a future in football.

Little by little Johnston built up a skillbase to go alongside his relentless energy and enthusiasm and, after returning to Australia briefly to play for Sydney City, demonstrated enough to Middlesbrough to earn a contract in 1977 shortly after Jack Charlton left the club and he made his first team debut in the January of the following year in a 3-2 FA Cup win at Everton shortly after his 17th birthday.

 

Craig Johnston in action for Middlesbrough against Everton

He gradually established himself in the Boro first team and showed he was capable of performing in the top flight, scoring 16 goals in 64 games over the following three seasons which persuaded Bob Paisley to pay £650,000 to bring Johnston to Anfield in April 1981.

He received a warmer initial welcome on Merseyside than he did on Teeside, with no less a figure than Kenny Dalglish making a point of picking him up outside his hotel on only his second day in the city and taking him house hunting, but a lingering knee injury and the attractions of a big city like Liverpool meant Johnston’s dream move was in danger of being cut short before it even really got started.

He recalled in his autobiography ‘Walk On’, “Later, when I had really paid my dues at Liverpool, I perceived how critical it was for new players to adopt a low profile when entering the Anfield portals.

“Being a brash young man, I wasn't astute enough to understand that people were trying to help and guide me.

“Do you think I was grateful that the immortal Dalglish, arguably the finest player ever to pull on a red shirt, was going out on his way to make me feel welcome?

“Not at first. I can remember entertaining the cynical notion that there must have been an ulterior motive. I had much to learn about Liverpool.

“The situation would have been better if I'd been fully fit. In fact, I had a serious knee injury. After a few games in reserves I reported the problem to Bob Paisley and it would only be a matter of time before it went altogether. It was another legacy of the carpark wear and tear. The outcome was that I wouldn't play again for the rest of the season.

“The Boss had always prided himself on being able to pick an injury a mile away. And he must have been furious with himself and especially me when it was revealed that Liverpool had paid a fortune for a player carrying a serious knee problem.

“No doubt, he had been made abundantly aware that his expensive and injured signing was carving out a bigger reputation on the party and night club circuit than on the training field. At Anfield they miss very little.

“In his grandfatherly fashion, the Boss called me into his office for a long overdue chat. He said that now the management had had a chance to see me at close quarters, they were of the opinion that the deal hadn't worked sweetly as they would have wished. Manchester United were about to sign Brian Robson from West Brom and the Midlands club was eager to part with some of the proceeds to secure a suitable midfield replacement.

“Liverpool, said Bob Paisley, would agree to let me go. I was rocked to the soles of my feet. Could they be serious? Would they really show me the door before I'd had as much as a whiff of the first team action?”

As had been the case at Middlesbrough, it was Graeme Souness who soothed the troubled waters in Johnston’s mind and helped set him on the right track again when the Aussie sought his advice.

“I wouldn't be surprised if it's a shock tactic”, the Scot - who would soon take over the Liverpool captaincy from Phil Thompson - told the worried young Aussie.

“They either want you to knuckle down and get on with the job, or p*** off.”

It was all Johnston needed to know.

“The injury meant there was nothing I could do about my playing form, but I could do something about the party circuit. I knocked it on the head.

“The situation was clear to me now. Not being required for duty during those final six weeks, I had been at a loose end with too much cash in my pocket and too much time on my hands. (His fiancée) Jenny had gone home to Australia early to prepare for our July wedding, and I had been missing her steadying influence.

“In that introductory period at Liverpool I stayed out too late, had too many drinks and believed too many people when they told me what a good bloke they thought I was. What I should have been doing was putting my head down and preparing for the day when Liverpool would want some return on their £650,000.”

Having worked hard to get himself fit for the start of the 1981/82 season, Johnston was handed the number 12 shirt (back in the days when there was only one substitute) for the Reds’ opening match at Wolves but still to bide his time for a further few months and make do with rare appearances off the bench.

A crucial extra-time goal which broke the deadlock however in a League Cup 4th round replay at home to Arsenal in December convinced Paisley his young Antipodean signing was finally ready for first time action and later that week he was handed his first Liverpool start in the exotic surroundings of Tokyo’s national stadium as the European champions took on Brazilian side Flamengo in the club’s first attempt to win the World Club Championship.

This was very much a Liverpool side in transition with a Boxing Day home defeat by Manchester City, Johnston’s first Anfield start, leaving the Reds an unheard-of 12th in the First Division and some media pundits speculating the era of Anfield dominance was at an end.

They had not reckoned though for the young talent like Ian Rush, Ronnie Whelan, Bruce Grobbelaar and Mark Lawrenson which Paisley was slowly but surely renovating his side with and by March Johnston too had become a key part of the team which was coming up on the rails to close in on yet another, but far more unexpected, league title.

The Aussie bagged his first league goal for the club in a 3-1 Merseyside derby win at Goodison Park and followed it up barely a week later with the only goal in a win over Manchester United at Old Trafford, adding further important strikes against Manchester City and Stoke along with a brace against Nottingham Forest.

 

Craig Johnston scores the winner for Liverpool against Manchester United at Old Trafford, Wednesday 7th April 1982

He was back on the bench by the time Liverpool clinched the club’s 12th championship by fighting back from a goal down at half time to beat FA Cup holders and repeat finalists Tottenham at Anfield on the final Saturday of the league season but had now proved his worth and that he belonged in such exalted company.

After scoring seven times in 23 appearances in his breakthrough season, Johnston struck ten times in 46 games the following campaign as Paisley’s side cruised to another championship during the canny north-easterners final season at the Anfield helm, with the departing boss making it clear it was Johnston’s attitude as much as his ability which enabled him to make his mark at the club.

“He is a highly committed young man, and his commitment to the club is obvious in his play”, Paisley said.

“You would think he had grown up on the Kop judging by the effort and eagerness that spills out of him every Saturday afternoon.

“Once upon a time Bill Shankly used to claim that playing in front of them at Anfield was worth a goal start to us. Scousers tend to be very passionate types who voice their views and their opinions loudly. When fifty thousand of them come together of the opinion that Liverpool are unbeatable, they let the opposition know about it.

“Time and time again we have scored vital late goals in crucial games at Anfield, and the vocal encouragement the team have received from the terraces has undoubtedly been, in part, responsible. Their loyalty and rabid enthusiasm demands a never-say-die approach from the players, and few epitomise that approach more completely than Craig.

“He is a fellow who prides himself on his level of fitness. I think he tells himself that he wouldn't be where he is in the game today unless he had such energy, and motivates himself by that thought.

“His other great asset as a forward is that he's a bit of an individualist. I used to say to him, 'I'm sure your parents kept you locked in your own back yard at home when you were a boy'. He played the game as if he had never been in a team with other players, as if he was only used to chasing the ball around on his own. When we bought him from Middlesbrough in 1981, it was his team work that was in need of improvement.

“All we have tried to do is make the game easier for him, to make him more aware of how to support colleagues and receive support from them.

“Football tends to reflect national traits. Craig may be a man of many nations, but first and foremost he is an Australian. The Aussies don't lack self-confidence as a rule, and Craig is no exception to that rule. But neither do they hold back when somebody offers them an opportunity to get on in life.

“Our Anfield Aussie has had a crack at just about everything. He's an avid photographer, he takes guitar lessons, he's learning an extra language, he's written a song and directed a video to go with it, I'm half expecting him to come into training one morning and tell me he's just come back from the moon!”

Life at Anfield would get harder for Johnston under Paisley’s successor in manager’s office Joe Fagan but not initially, with the Aussie playing 52 matches in all competitions as Liverpool won the club’s first Treble, with the third league title and League Cup in successive years being augmented with a fourth European Cup in seven years.

The confidence provided by the Reds’ outstanding performances away from home in that year’s competition proved vital when their opponents in the Rome final turned out to be none other than Italian champions AS Roma themselves and before the game Johnston was among those Liverpool players who stunned their opponents by showing how relaxed they were in the tunnel by belting out the song which had been the soundtrack of their run to the final and demonstrating they were in no mood to be intimidated by their surroundings.

 

 

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“Having been in Middlesbrough I knew about Chris Rea”, he said years later in Tony Evans’s book, ‘I Don’t What It Is But I Love It’, which was named after the track in question.

“It had become one of the team’s anthems, one of us would sing a verse and the rest would come in on the chorus clapping and chanting.

“As we’re going down the tunnel David Hodgson broke into a solo version of the verse. One or two joined in and by the time we were outside the Roma dressing room every one of us was singing.”

The arrival of John Wark in March 1984 had put Johnston’s future at Anfield in doubt however. The Scot had been ineligible for the European Cup so the Aussie kept his place in the side in the run-up to Rome but the following campaign, which became one of comparative struggle at Anfield following the departure of Graeme Souness to Sampdoria, saw Wark regularly preferred with Johnston making only 17 appearances in all competitions and not finding the net once.

The disgruntled Aussie expressed his frustration at the situation through the media which led to an escalating feud with the manager and led to the player considering a future away from Anfield but the the appointment of Kenny Dalglish as player-manager in the summer of 1985 led to an upturn in fortunes.

The Scot recognised Johnston’s single-minded desire to succeed - he had even had a key cut for the Liverpool’s training ground at Melwood so he could ‘break in’ and do extra training - could become all-consuming at times and realised even at this formative stage of his own managerial career that psychological support was required just as much as technical and tactical help.

"Craig was his own worst enemy," Dalglish said.

"He just didn't believe in in his footballing abilities, and I could see that, when his form deserted him, Craig became depressed and the dark cycle continued. Several times during the season I had to beat away this black dog of depression chasing Craig."

It paid off for the new Reds boss in spades. Johnston played all but two of the 63 matches Liverpool played in all competitions as the club became only the third team that century to win the hallowed League and FA Cup double, reaching double figures again by notching ten times with his final strike of the campaign without question being the most important.

Having won at Chelsea on the final Saturday of the league season to take the title back across Stanley Park, a week later at Wembley Liverpool were a goal behind to Howard Kendall’s Everton at half time in the first all-Merseyside FA Cup final, with their Double dreams hanging by a thread.

But after Ian Rush equalised twelve minutes after the interval (with Johnston sliding in the goal-line to make sure and only just failing to get a touch before it crossed the line), the Australian was in the right place at the right time six minutes later to convert Jan Molby’s cross at the far post to put Liverpool in front. It was the crowning glory of his career and vindication for all those years of self-doubt and hard work.

 

Craig Johnston puts Liverpool in front and back on course for the League and FA Cup Double against Everton at Wembley, 10 May 1986

“At half time I’d barely had a kick and I feared the biggest game of my life was passing me by”, Johnston recalled.

“But I just went back to all that time in the car park, both at Middlesbrough and Liverpool, and I just thought to myself, just focus back on the basics – foot on ball, win the next tackle.

“Then halfway through the second half this ball just popped up magically, the goalkeeper just off his line, just at the edge of the six yard box, and I thought, look, it can’t be that easy just to connect my foot with the ball, and it was like that slow motion sweet spot that everybody talks about when your life stands still for a moment.

“And I just thought, this can’t be this simple – all I have to do is hit that part of the ball with this part of my foot, like I’ve done in 10,000 hours, like 10,000 times of an afternoon, and I thought well I’d better go ahead and do it then and, like a slow motion video, I just put my foot on the ball and it went in the net.

“Then the colour, the light, the noise, the rush, just came over me and everybody started jumping all over me and I just kept saying, 'I’ve done it! I’ve done it! I’ve done it!' and Ian Rush, Ronnie Whelan and those guys were saying, 'alright, alright, you’ve scored, you’ve scored'.

“But I didn’t mean 'I’ve done it, I’ve scored', it meant 'I’ve done it, I'd got through the polio and hospitalisation, I’d took my parents' sacrifice and come from Australia, fought the odds and made it work, I’d took Jack Charlton's dismissal on the chin and figured out how to get out of the coal shed'.

"I got to be in the best team in the world on that Saturday afternoon. I could've honestly died on that spot that afternoon and I'd have died a happy man."

Having become a father earlier in Cup Final week, 1986 should have been the happiest year of Johnston’s life but it was to end in tragedy which would have far-reaching consequences for his football career.

That December, his younger sister Faye became critically ill following a gas leak caused by a faulty heater in a hotel room she was staying in while on holiday in Morocco, which left her in a coma and permanently brain-damaged.

Johnston was at Liverpool’s Christmas party when he heard the devastating news and immediately flew to Morocco to be by his sister’s side and arranged for her to be initially brought back to England and cared for in London.

The situation was kept out of the public domain with only Dalglish being aware Johnston was spending hours travelling up and down the country to see his sister, who it was becoming clear would need lifelong care, and his parents who by this time he’d also brought over from Australia.

He still managed to perform for Liverpool making 37 appearances in 1986/87 and 35 the following campaign as he played his part in another memorable league title win but Johnston had already made the typically-selfless decision to retire from football at the end of that season and return to Australia to help his family care for Faye.

A tabloid newspaper broke an agreement and ran the story of his shock retirement on the morning of his final Liverpool match, the 1988 FA Cup final against Wimbledon, much to Johnston’s distress.

 

Craig Johnston in action during his final match for Liverpool, the 1988 FA Cup final against Wimbledon at Wembley

“Nobody really knew about the situation but somebody got a sniff of it and said we want to do a story.

"I trusted this person, this journalist, and I said, 'well on the absolute strict prerequisite that the story is done after the Cup final'. We shook on it, we did a deal and I did the story.

“Then the night before the Cup final, the editor of the paper phoned me and said, ‘we’re running the story’, and I said, ‘you can’t run the story; you’ve made a promise’. He said, ‘the story’s too big, we’re running with it’.

“I had to then phone Kenny and say ‘here’s what’s happened’ and it was really, really unfortunate but I got totally turned over and the journalist himself has never forgiven himself for taking the story but it was because of the decision of the paper.

“It was one of those things that was not consciously done because the thing about Liverpool was team spirit and teamwork and respect for your mates, the club and the manager. I would never have done that knowing what an unscrupulous editor of a paper would do.”

Johnston’s innate humanity came shining through again less than twelve months later when 96 Liverpool supporters were unlawfully killed at Hillsborough. He immediately flew back to Merseyside to attend the memorial service and stayed for a number of weeks to both support survivors in hospital and help counsel the bereaved families, before returning home to Australia and raising tens of thousands of pounds for the disaster fund with the Liverpool supporters club in Sydney.

He recalled, “I was up at Palm Beach in 1989 surfing on a Malibu board that was decorated in Liverpool's colours when someone called me back to the shore, and told me something awful had happened.

“I had to get the next plane I could back to England - I knew something of the injuries involved among the survivors, especially those in comas, as my sister had suffered the same injuries when she had her accident.

“There was this surreal scene at Anfield - the players' lounge, previously such a sacrosanct place, had been turned into a bereavement centre for the victims and their families to talk to (then Liverpool manager) Kenny Dalglish, players, clergymen, counsellors, whoever.

“Then I went to the hospital in Sheffield, where lots of the victims remained in a coma from being crushed and losing oxygen: exactly what my sister had gone through three years before, where the brain is starved of oxygen.

“I knew the process of sitting by Faye's bed, talking to her to try to lift her from the coma.

“I used to bring her baby daughter in and pinch her so Faye could hear the sound of her girl crying. So with the Hillsborough victims, I tried to find out their favourite player and have a tape made up by that player to play on the ward.

“Really I was trying to help where I could in the background - you can play for that club for nine years as I did but have no idea what it really means to people.

“After a few weeks I felt like I'd done what I could, so I went in to see Kenny Dalglish. He reached into his drawer, and told me that in all the rush to leave the year before, I'd left behind my league championship winners' medal.

“All my other memorabilia I'd already asked my wife to give to the Liverpool supporters club in Sydney, who auctioned it. They made around $100,000 for the Hillsborough appeal.

 

Window display of Craig Johnston's Liverpool FC gear, including his Malibu surfboard, which was auction to raise funds for the victims of Hillsborough

“There was one guy who bought that surfboard I'd been on when I heard the news and he sent it to Liverpool, where it's now on the roof of the trophy room. Those fans in Sydney subsequently had a surfboard made for me themselves.

“I still think about it, so I know the pain will still be with the victims and their families.”

Dalglish reportedly offered Johnston a new deal in 1989 and he continued to receive offers to resume his football career but he’d made it clear Liverpool (“or Liverpool reserves!”, he said) was the only team he could ever play for again and his horizons had already broadened into different and innovative career paths, the most famous of which saw him design the world’s best-selling football boot.

The idea came about while he was pursuing one of his other passions, coaching football to youngsters, which would later become a less-successful business venture.

“I’d had the idea coaching kids in Oz when I was trying to teach them how to bend the ball by really feeling it”, he said.

“It was pouring with rain and one of the kids said, 'I can’t feel the ball, my boots are made of leather not table tennis bats.’ It was a funny thing to say, but something went ping in my head. I went home, ripped the front off a table tennis bat, attached it by rubber band to my boots and it worked.

“I spent a lot of time and a lot of money patenting and experimenting. I took my prototypes to Nike, Reebok, Puma, they all knocked me back. So I went to see some players I thought Adidas would respect – Beckenbauer, Rummenigge, Breitner – and videoed them trying out my prototypes. They said a whole load of stuff in German I couldn’t understand. I went to Adidas, showed them the film, they went, 'Oh my gosh, don’t leave the room, we have to do a deal’.

“I still don’t know what they said, the players. But the deal they gave me was so good that later, when the company was taken over, the new owners were told by their accountants that the first thing they had to do was get out of their contract with Johnston. They offered to buy me out.

"I took the money. Since then, they’ve sold millions of boots, at over a hundred quid a pair. And I was on two per cent of the action, so you can do the maths.”

After also inventing a minibar security system that enabled hotels to keep track of what guests had actually used (devised after years spent in hotels as a footballer he admitted), Johnston used his Adidas pay off to develop a football coaching system for children called SoccerSkills which gained official FIFA approval but the Football Association dragged their heels on whether to license the system which left him penniless and bankrupt, also losing his marriage in the process.

Never one to take adversity lying down - he has also survived number of bouts of skin cancer - Johnston picked himself up and poured himself into making his lifelong hobby of photography a viable career which happily he was able to do.

“Photography was my first love”, he admitted. “I even had a studio in Liverpool. You see, I was never made to be a footballer mentally. I preferred to hang around with the press photographers after the games. They would use my darkroom and I would study their techniques.

“Years later I’d been declared bankrupt and dealing with administrators, lawyers, stuff you don’t want to do, I was extremely depressed.

“I broke up with my wife, the kids had gone back to Australia, I had no house, no car, nothing. It would have been easy to hit the bottle. But I had my old camera. I went for a walk, it was pouring with rain, and for me photography is like meditation.

“I suddenly saw this mannequin, beautifully dressed in beautiful light in a window. Just then this nasty tramp was coming along the road, swearing at me. And I saw him in the window, and I thought how interesting, the haves and have nots in the same picture. I got his reflection in the window, with this lovely model, it was a great moment. Mate, it really lifted my spirits. It took me to a different place.”

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His photography skills also got him into television production where he worked Down Under for both Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch, while his artistic talents were further evidenced by him writing the Anfield Rap during his final season at Anfield and he also co-wrote World in Motion with New Order for England’s World Cup song in 1990.

"I've never been able to sit still and thankfully my brain is still incredibly active and creative”, Johnston, who has taken on an ambassadorial role during Liverpool’s pre-season trips to Australia over the last decade and been warmly received by Reds supporters Down Under and back on Merseyside whenever he visits.

Many would no doubt disagree with the humble Aussie’s modest assertion that, “ You have no idea how crap I was. Even when I was playing for Liverpool, I was the worst player in the best team in the world.”

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[dockers_strike]

Alli, Fab and Bobby start for Brasil against Ecuador in the Coppa Group B. Currently 0-0 after 15 minutes.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

LFC baby pics.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDfwAZqCBj4&ab_channel=UEFA

 

[Tj hooker]

Dominic Matteo on Long lost family now 

[dockers_strike]

We're off to Austria!

 

Liverpool's pre-season programme will begin on Monday July 12 with a training camp in Austria.

 

The Reds will start preparations for the 2021-22 campaign in the state of Salzburg, with a number of senior players set to report for duty on day one as part of a 34-man squad.

Jürgen Klopp’s side will also undertake work across Austria at a base in Tyrol later in the camp.

New signing Ibrahima Konate is among the players due to begin training on Monday following his transfer from RB Leipzig.

Details of Liverpool’s warm-up fixtures, and subsequent broadcast details, will be confirmed in due course.

Assistant manager Pepijn Lijnders said: “We look forward to going to Austria again for the start of our pre-season. All the conditions to prepare the team there are just at a very high level.

“We will use this to go back to basics. When you ask a lot from your players you have to give a lot as well – and we find all of this in Austria.”

Players reporting for pre-season training on July 12

James Milner, Adrian, Ben Davies, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ibrahima Konate, Joel Matip, Nat Phillips, Divock Origi, Ben Woodburn, Rhys Williams, Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Kostas Tsimikas, Caoimhin Kelleher, Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah, Naby Keita, Curtis Jones, Taiwo Awoniyi, Marko Grujic, Harvey Elliott, Loris Karius, Takumi Minamino, Jake Cain, Leighton Clarkson, Marcelo Pitaluga, Harvey Davies, Billy Koumetio, Owen Beck, Kaide Gordon, Mateusz Musialowski, Tyler Morton, Conor Bradley.

 

https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/first-team/437527-revealed-liverpool-austria-training-camp-plans-pre-season

[m0e]

8 hours ago, dockers_strike said:

We're off to Austria!

 

Liverpool's pre-season programme will begin on Monday July 12 with a training camp in Austria.

 

The Reds will start preparations for the 2021-22 campaign in the state of Salzburg, with a number of senior players set to report for duty on day one as part of a 34-man squad.

Jürgen Klopp’s side will also undertake work across Austria at a base in Tyrol later in the camp.

New signing Ibrahima Konate is among the players due to begin training on Monday following his transfer from RB Leipzig.

Details of Liverpool’s warm-up fixtures, and subsequent broadcast details, will be confirmed in due course.

Assistant manager Pepijn Lijnders said: “We look forward to going to Austria again for the start of our pre-season. All the conditions to prepare the team there are just at a very high level.

“We will use this to go back to basics. When you ask a lot from your players you have to give a lot as well – and we find all of this in Austria.”

Players reporting for pre-season training on July 12

James Milner, Adrian, Ben Davies, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ibrahima Konate, Joel Matip, Nat Phillips, Divock Origi, Ben Woodburn, Rhys Williams, Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Kostas Tsimikas, Caoimhin Kelleher, Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah, Naby Keita, Curtis Jones, Taiwo Awoniyi, Marko Grujic, Harvey Elliott, Loris Karius, Takumi Minamino, Jake Cain, Leighton Clarkson, Marcelo Pitaluga, Harvey Davies, Billy Koumetio, Owen Beck, Kaide Gordon, Mateusz Musialowski, Tyler Morton, Conor Bradley.

 

https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/first-team/437527-revealed-liverpool-austria-training-camp-plans-pre-season

All 3 centre halves back, plus TAA!

 

[Colonel Bumcunt]

Couple of old ticket stubs I've kept for 23+ years! 

 

 

[sir roger]

Fucking hell , Colonel , a loss to the Owls and a quiet game against the Barcodes.

[Colonel Bumcunt]

On 11/07/2021 at 16:11, sir roger said:

Fucking hell , Colonel , a loss to the Owls and a quiet game against the Barcodes.

It was 4-3 v Newcastle, the second one, it was fucking ace. 

[Bjornebye]

14 minutes ago, Colonel Bumcunt said:

It was 4-3 v Newcastle, the second one, it was fucking ace. 

I was in the Kop for that game and yes it was magical. That game is why I named myself Bjornebye on here. That cross was pure sex 

[sir roger]

3 hours ago, Colonel Bumcunt said:

It was 4-3 v Newcastle, the second one, it was fucking ace. 

I was being facetious

[sir roger]

Just now, sir roger said:

I was being facetious

 

[sir roger]

No idea why my replies to the Colonel are appearing back on the thread

[Colonel Bumcunt]

44 minutes ago, sir roger said:

No idea why my replies to the Colonel are appearing back on the thread

Yeah, this thread is haunted. 

[dockers_strike]

On 12/07/2021 at 19:10, Colonel Bumcunt said:

It was 4-3 v Newcastle, the second one, it was fucking ace. 

The first one wasnt bad, either!

[sir roger]

[sir roger]

Ex Red , who do we think it is ?

[alles ist gut]

21 minutes ago, sir roger said:

Ex Red , who do we think it is ?

Collymore