Red Machine

by Simon Hughes

  One condition of the trip was that he left Australia having achieved straight A grades in his final exams, so it was lucky that Johnston was academic.

  ‘I was really good in school and at first I wanted to be an architect because I’ve always liked building things. Then, once, I went on a soccer trip to Sydney and I got violently sick. I must have had a dodgy meat pie. I thought I was going to die. Then a doctor came in and gave me a drug to knock me out. When I woke up, I felt better immediately. From then on, I wanted to be one of those people who could take the pain away. I thought about medicine. Very easily, I could have been successful in either of those professions. In the end, I studied, studied and studied like no kid had ever studied in science, maths and English and aced them all. So I was off.’

  Middlesbrough was very different to Newcastle, Australia. Although similarly dominated by the heavy industries of mining, railways, iron, steel, shipbuilding and the docks (later petro-chemicals), by the late ’70s it afforded few prospects of employment. Middlesbrough was depression-stricken, a land of everlasting fog. This was the town of J.B. Priestley’s English Journey, ‘whose chief passions … were for beer and football’. It was, Priestley wrote, ‘a dismal town, even with beer and football’.

  ‘To go from the hot, steamy beaches of New South Wales to the cold, cobbled, misty streets of north-east England on a wet, gloomy winter’s evening was a shock, even though it was fascinating to me,’ Johnston says. ‘That was when I started taking photographs. I’d walk around the town and try to capture the little quirks of life in the north of England.’

  Jack Charlton attended his first trial match.

  ‘It was at a place called Hutton Road,’ he continues, grimacing. ‘We were 3–0 down at half-time. For whatever reason, the manager of the first team turned up – something that never happens. He went around the dressing-room bollocking everyone. “You – where are you from?” he asked me.

  ‘I’m from Australia, mate.’

  ‘“I’m not your mate and well … you … kangaroo are the worst fucking footballer I have seen in my whole fucking life. Now fuck off.”

  ‘I burst into tears and couldn’t play the second half. I got my bag and found my way to the digs. I had to tell my mum. This was 1975, so phoning Australia meant a lot of hassle with reverse charges. It took me an hour to get through. “How was your big trial? We’re so proud of you!” she said. “Have you met Jack Charlton?”

  ‘I told her that Charlton thought I was one of the finest footballers he’d seen in his life and that he wanted me to stay. Then I put the phone down as quickly as I could. They’d sold the house for me, so I couldn’t tell them I was fucking crap like he’d told me, could I? They had taken so many risks just to see me happy.’

  However ruthless he may have been, Johnston insists that Charlton was right about his ability.

  ‘He wasn’t wrong; I was that bad,’ he smiles. ‘There were all these cultured, elegant European footballers to pick from, and I had bleached blond, almost Rastafarian hair because I was a beach kid. He really wasn’t wrong. I met Charlton years later at a function on the Gold Coast [in Australia] where his son was then living. I told my story and he told his side of it. “You needed a kick up the bum.” Charlton got the most out of people, not that he intended to get the most out of me. But I suppose had he not been so harsh I wouldn’t have bounced back with so much desire to prove the bastard wrong.

  ‘Since then, I have met him five or six times and I have found him to be a funny, clever guy, and people don’t give him enough credit for what he achieved – especially at Ireland. He got results. He was no-nonsense and straight-talking. I’ve always admired Charlton. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have taken any notice of him.’

  For the next six months, however, Johnston hid from Charlton’s wrath and trained alone in the club’s car park.

  ‘Some of the professionals like Graeme Souness and Terry Cooper [ex Leeds] had heard what he said to me and felt it was a bit harsh. They said that if I cleaned their cars, they’d give me enough money to stay at the digs. So whenever Charlton came into work, they’d give me a shout and I’d crouch behind the vehicles to keep out of his way.

  ‘After the Charlton episode, I thought to myself, “How do I become a footballer?” They dribbled, they passed and they headed the ball. But I couldn’t do any of those things particularly well. So I started watching Souness and [David] Mills in training, then I’d return to the car park and try my best to develop my skills and techniques by using garbage cans to dribble in and out of at full speed if I could. If I hit one of them, it didn’t count, so I had to do it again: ten left foot, ten right foot. Every time I hit the can, I had to start again. There was a mortuary next door, so you never wanted to hit the ball over the wall because it was a nightmare getting it back. I’d do this all day until seven or eight o’clock at night – whenever I’d fulfilled my quota of skills. It was the only thing that kept me sane and focused. I had to be a better player at night than I was when I woke up in the morning.’

  It was a lonely existence.

  ‘It’s a bit of a hard-luck story here, but I couldn’t share it with anybody else. I knew the other apprentices that had been taken on were back at their digs eating their Spam and watching Coronation Street. When you’re in a football club, your self-worth and value as a human being is only marked as a footballer. All of the great, naturally gifted footballers are like mini gods. All of the clodhoppers like me are worthless. Nobody says it, but that’s the way I interpreted it. People thought I was a joke – bloody hilarious – running around on my own. I was resented from the start because I was crap, they resented me also because I tried to get better, and they resented me because I was a proud Australian and was a lot brighter than many of them. I wasn’t a dope, so if shit came my way, I wouldn’t just stand there and take it. I used to get in all sorts of arguments and fights. But the car park was my penance for being a useless footballer.’

  Eventually, Jack Charlton moved on to Sheffield Wednesday and was replaced by John Neal.

  ‘On his first day, he saw me training in the car park and asked, “Who’s that scruffy guy?”

  ‘The older lads just said, “Ah, that’s Kangaroo – he always practises in the car park – he’s crap.”

  ‘John then invited me over and said I could train with the youth team. From then on, I think I became a concern to all the players that doubted me because my style was harem-scarem. I was keener than them. I had no natural ability, but I had an engine and a huge heart. Because I practised hard, I showed all of them up for effort and attitude. Gradually, I got better. Soon, I’d have one touch rather than three. I also bought a cinema projector and watched a lot of old shows about Pelé and the greats. I tried to learn from their attitudes off the pitch. Eventually, the other apprentices came to my room to watch the movies. Then they’d start playing one on one in the car park because they liked the games that I invented.’

  A flu epidemic at Ayresome Park gave Johnston his chance in the first team. Just two years after being brutally discounted by Jack Charlton, he was lining up in the FA Cup against Everton.

  ‘Six of the squad were wiped out,’ he says. ‘There wasn’t a big squad at Middlesbrough, and because I’d played well in the reserves, John Neal put some faith in me. It was on television and I played really well. I’d spent my whole life watching English football on TV and now I was a part of it. It was like when you’re young and a fair comes to town and you watch it roll down the road. All the people are on floats. All of a sudden, I was on the field and I was on one of the floats. I wasn’t waving at the floats. The people were waving at me. It was a strange feeling, given what I’d been through in a short period. At 17 I became the youngest player at the time to play for Middlesbrough. I’d set out what I aimed to do when I left Australia.’

  Better was to follow. Following 64 games and 16 league goals on Teeside, Liverpool made an offer for him. But there were other proposals to consider.

  ‘
The first call came from Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest,’ Johnston recalls. ‘The fella on the end of the line said, “Hello, young man, it’s Brian Clough here,” in that unmistakable accent.

  ‘I was like, yeah, right. “No, it really is Brian Clough here and I’m in Benidorm … and I’d like to sign you.”

  ‘I thought it was somebody taking the piss.

  ‘“No, no … I’m very serious. This is an expensive call … I’ll be back next week, we’ll see you at our place and we’ll sign up the details.”

  ‘He put the phone down and I said to myself, “Wow – that really was Brian Clough.”’

  Twenty minutes later, the phone rang again.

  ‘“Erp … erp, it’s Bob Paisley ’ere like y’naw,” this bloke says.

  ‘“Aw, piss off,” I responded.

  ‘“No, it’s Bob Paisley … I’ve heard all aboot ye from the lads, Graeme Souness in particular. We’d like to sign ye, like.”

  ‘I knew it was him because the accent was too perfect. He told me that we needed to do the deal quickly because he understood that Clough was interested and because Liverpool were on the verge of selling someone in my position [Jimmy Case was the player set to leave, although the transfer to Brighton didn’t happen for another four months].

  ‘When Bob put the phone down, I immediately rang around to get hold of a solicitor, because I didn’t have an agent. Eventually, I spoke to my dad. He went straight to the point. “Brian Clough is a man. But Liverpool is an institution.” Forest were winning European Cups and all the buzz was about Clough. He’d played for Middlesbrough after growing up there, and people like the old groundsmen who knew him said we had similar personalities. Like me, he was the only other footballer they knew that would spend hours on the training ground after a session had finished to practise technique. Despite this, I realised that I had to go to the institution.’

  There were other interested parties.

  ‘Bill Shankly recommended me several times to Everton,’ he insists. ‘I had word that because the Liverpool board had peed him off by distancing themselves, he agreed to some scouting work with Everton on the quiet. They were looking to move for me but because Middlesbrough said no initially, they signed Gary Megson instead. I could have been an Evertonian.’

  Liverpool agreed a deal worth up to £650,000 with Middlesbrough.

  ‘It was the first time I really felt wanted. To go from the situation with Jack Charlton to being signed by Liverpool in no more than four to five years was quite spectacular. In one of the national newspapers, the headline ran “Craig Johnston: Take your pick”. It had a picture of me with a list of over a dozen clubs underneath that were trying to buy me. It was solely down to the four or five hours I’d spent in the car park every day.’

  Like many new signings, Johnston was accommodated in the Holiday Inn on Paradise Street after agreeing a contract with chairman John Smith. He soon moved to Sandfield Park in West Derby.

  ‘Kenny Dalglish wasn’t the captain, but he was a leader in the dressing-room,’ Johnston insists. ‘Within the first 24 hours of me being there, he took me around Southport to look for property and went out of his way to make me feel at home and comfortable.’

  The next day, Souness warned Johnston against living in Southport.

  ‘He told me that it was where the posh guys live. “Come and see where us working-class blokes live.” So he took me for a pint in the Jolly Miller then around West Derby. Davey Fairclough and Sammy Lee also lived there, along with Chris Lawler. Melwood was just around the corner, so to me it was perfect.’

  Later on, when Johnston was out of the Liverpool team, his home on Sandfield Park would provide a convenient location for sneaking back into the training ground for some extra sessions.

  ‘I was so embarrassed that I didn’t meet the required standards for a Liverpool player that I had my own key cut for Melwood. Nobody knew about it. I did everything I could to become better. One time we were training and Ronnie Moran stopped us. “What the fuck is this?” There was a set of cones in the figure of eight. He thought that kids must have broken into Melwood and had a kickabout. “Bloody kids.” After training, I admitted to Ronnie that I’d been there the night before practising by doing some shuttles with the ball. “What for?” I explained that I needed to work on my left foot.’

  Johnston arrived at Liverpool in April 1981 but didn’t play for the first team until the following season. By then, the Reds were struggling in the league. On Boxing Day, they had lost five and drawn six of the seventeen games, occupying a place in mid-table. Sceptics argued that Liverpool’s dominance of the English game was on the verge of a collapse.

  ‘I was completely naive to the situation because I was used to rocky times at Middlesbrough,’ Johnston says. ‘I was slightly disappointed that I wasn’t called on a lot more, because I felt I’d earned the right to play by training hard [Johnston only appeared in 18 league games that season]. In the second part of the year, we managed to turn things around and eventually pipped Ipswich to the title. I was pleased we did it, but I’m an Aussie and I’m competitive. I wanted to play an important role in a successful team.’

  In the summer of 1982, Johnston was late turning up for pre-season training after his then wife, Jane, gave birth to their firstborn in Australia. Already, he was beginning to feel unsettled at Liverpool. Bob Paisley wasn’t quite the genial person he appeared to be.

  ‘I provided enthusiasm and effort for the team. I tried to spark and provoke other players to do the same. But I wasn’t sure that was appreciated. Bob kept his distance from me and all the players – as did Joe Fagan and later Kenny. It was the accepted Liverpool style of management. I didn’t feel like I could go to Bob, and Joe especially, with the concerns that I had. It’s a macho responsibility to sort yourself out mentally and physically, so I never, ever went into the manager’s office. I wanted to prove myself at Liverpool, but I wasn’t given a fair chance until Kenny took charge.’

  Johnston fell out with Fagan upon his appointment as manager in 1983.

  ‘I thought Joe was being unfair to me. Here I am 25 years later and I still feel the same way about what happened. I was dropped from the team for not playing well, which was fine. But then I worked hard in training and played really well in the reserves, so I thought that I deserved a recall. He said, “I can’t change a winning team – I can’t put you in.” Then somebody got injured and I went in and we won the next three or four back to back. But he dropped me again. So I went into his office and said, “I thought you said you can’t change a winning team?” Joe replied, “That was then and this is now.”’

  With that, a bristling Johnston became even more frustrated at Anfield.

  ‘Maybe there are players that can pick up their wages and sit on the bench, but I wasn’t one of them. I’d fought too hard as a youngster in the hospital and dreamed too hard to not contribute. It ate me away. I couldn’t train all week, knowing that I wasn’t going to be in the team. Every time the team was read out on a Friday or Saturday, I’d sit there with my palms sweating nervously. Rushy used to laugh at that, but it used to hurt me so much. A couple of times, I shouted out, “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding here.” Nobody ever spoke out of turn to the manager. It probably didn’t help my chances.’

  Johnston considered leaving Liverpool, with both Chelsea and Ron Atkinson’s Manchester United making offers.

  ‘There were times when I’d go out drinking with players in a similar position to me – players dumped from the first team and into the reserves. We’d bitch about the manager and we’d do it for two or three weeks. But then I thought that wasn’t my style. I had to extract my aggression out on something else. It was my own fault – I wasn’t good enough to be in that particular team. So I trained harder. Under Joe, I played eleven games in the 1984–85 season. But when Kenny took over, he knew I was doing extra training and rewarded me for it. To have the balls to come back was something I was very proud of.’

  G
iven the difficulties during his first three seasons at Liverpool, it is easy to forget that he was a major part of the squad that won the club’s fourth European Cup in Rome. Johnston believes a major reason behind Liverpool’s success was a well-oiled team spirit.

  ‘I never drank at all at Middlesbrough,’ he says. ‘I didn’t particularly like the taste of beer. I made up for it when I got to Liverpool, let me tell you. I began to enjoy it. It was a very sociable dressing-room. The guys appreciated each other’s company. There was a genuine cultural connection. You were either English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh. There were those that weren’t – the Australian, the Zimbabwean [Grobbelaar], the Dane [Mølby]. We all understood the Liverpool culture, spoke English and loved a beer.

  ‘The reason why we won everything hands down was because of team spirit. It was remarkable. If you look at people like Dalglish, Souness, Lawrenson and Hansen, they’ve all gone on to do extremely well in life because they were all gentlemen. They understood what professionalism means, what delivery means and most of all what being a man fucking means. They really did. There was no hiding place in that dressing-room. Nobody got away with one shirked tackle, because we understood what it means to play for Liverpool.’

  The spirit at Anfield was founded on verbal wit rather than practical jokes.

  ‘There were no examples of a poo being left in somebody’s lunch box to my knowledge. But each person was funny and had a sense of humour. Me and Bruce would be the butt of everyone else’s displeasure and piss-taking at times. But that was part of a great team spirit – somebody always has to be the fall guy. There were others as well – for their lack of intelligence, naiveness or because they told porky pies, exaggerating things. The dynamics of the dressing-room was fascinating to me.’

  The atmosphere at Everton was similar.