Johnston eyes a returnAfter a 20-year stand-off, Craig Johnston is ready to play his long-awaited major role in Australian football.
Johnston's induction into Australian football's Hall of Champions last week marked a healing in his relationship with the game's administrators and he feels the time is right to return to the fold.
With a European Cup and FA Cup winner's medals, five English League championships, two League Cups and three Charity Shields, Johnston has won more major medals than every other Australian player put together.
He led the way for the likes of Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka and Tim Cahill as the lone Australian playing in England's first division in the 1970s and early 1980s, first for Middlesbrough and then Liverpool. Yet, with a record unmatched in Australian sport, he had been overlooked for an official honour because he never played for his country - the biggest regret of his life. "I've been ignored for 20 years but now it's heartening to get some recognition," Johnston said in London where he still lives.
"Since I left home as a 15-year-old, I've always been a very proud Australian."
"I always wanted to do my part for Australian soccer."
"But I could never find the people I could trust to work with, but now's the time."
Johnston, 45, is impressed with new chief executive John O'Neill and chairman Frank Lowy at the made-over Football Federation Australia and says every change they have made is good for the local game.
Johnston has had talks with O'Neill and Lowy, who signed him as a 15-year-old to Sydney club Hakoah, and is awaiting their response to his offer of help.
"I really liked what I saw of them and respect them as businessmen, they are clearly good operators," Johnston said.
"I've told them I've always had an overriding desire to put back into the game especially at a youth development level and because of their involvement, the time is right for me to do something really big and powerful in Australia."
"There's been this disconnect, the cynics accused me of being disloyal, unpatriotic and that hurts. The biggest regret I have in my professional playing career is not playing for Australia."
"I firmly believe I could do far more now for youth development than I ever could as a player."
The disconnect dates back to Johnston's bold move as a 15-year-old to invite himself to trial with English club Middlesbrough in 1975.
His parents sold their Newcastle home to finance his trip but after Boro manager Jack Charlton called the mop-haired teenager "the worst player I have ever seen", Johnston was stuck in the north-east of England. A severe groin injury rendered him helpless and in hospital, so he turned to the Australian Soccer Federation asking for an airfare home.
"It was the lowest point of my life and I needed help," Johnston said.
"When I called the Australian Soccer Federation they totally ignored me, they said 'no, don't know who you are, can't help you' and hung up on me."
"Two years later I made the first team at Middlesbrough and the same administrators rang me and said 'we'll fly you home for the next match'.
"You can guess what I said to them. So it goes back a long way."
"I am a very proud Australian, but I was young and headstrong and I reacted badly to the fact the administrators had discarded me."
He was also cornered by both Middlesbrough and Liverpool who made it clear that if he went to play for Australia he would probably not have a first team place when he got back.
"As far as I was concerned every weekend I played for Middlesbrough and Liverpool, I was representing Australia," Johnston said.
"Aussie fans would travel to Anfield to see me play and I would light up with pride." Most of those two years between Charlton's blunt assessment and his selection as Middlesbrough's youngest player in history was spent in the Boro car park, hiding from Charlton, kicking a ball against walls, around garbage cans and at targets.
For up to six hours a day, seven days a week, the "mad man" in the car park worked on his skills while living with Boro great Graeme Souness who convinced his teammates to pay Johnston for washing their cars and cleaning their boots. When Charlton moved to Sheffield Wednesday, Johnston's hours of solo practice paid off as John Neill took over as Boro manager and gave him his break at the age of 17.
He was then signed in 1980 by Liverpool where Johnston says he was "the worst player in the world's best team". Which was still good enough to score the winning goal in the 1986 FA Cup final and be a crucial midfield cog in Liverpool's golden era.
A prolific inventor and designer since his last game in 1988, Johnston has applied the drills he put himself through in the car park to create the FIFA-endorsed Supaskills training program.
He wants to spend five months a year in Australia, coaching youth and running Supaskills which operates a global ratings standard similar to a golf handicap.
But he also wants a role with the national team in its perennial struggle to reach the World Cup finals.
"The new structure looks good. One day I would like to get involved from top to bottom," Johnston said.
Which pretty much sums up the depth of his experience in most levels of football as player, coach, administrator and inventor.
He enjoyed huge success when he invented the Predator boot for adidas and its successor the Pig which earned him a place in the final four of last year's British Designer of the Year award.
But, let down by investors, he has emerged from a year of bankruptcy and is philosophical about the experience.
"Sport, business and life are pretty much the same in the way that you have your ups and your downs," he said.
"I'd like to think my experience can benefit Australian youngsters whatever their dreams."
A man with that many medals, that much experience and who counts Pele, Michel Platini, Johan Cruyff and Sepp Blatter as friends is someone Australian football cannot afford to ignore any more.
Updated: Tue, Sep 27, 2005 10:20:43 AM AEST
All photos copyright AAP
Could help explain some of the excitement from Aussies upon the signing of Kewell - Not to mention why we might be less likely to get on his back, and more likely to back him in his return to fitness & form.
Either way, not a bad story if you're a LFC fan, an Aussie, or better still, both - like me
