Former Liverpool and Everton striker David Johnson has sadly died at the age of 71. Johnson, who was from Halewood, had been ill for some time having been diagnosed with throat cancer in recent years.
During his playing career, Johnson had two spells at Everton, but it was during six years at Liverpool where the forward enjoyed his greatest success, winning four league championships, two European Cups, one League Cup and a UEFA Super Cup.
Here, Dan Kay looks back on the career of the former striker...
For every football supporter who grows up on Merseyside, the dream of scoring the winning goal against the old enemy in the derby is as natural as breathing itself.
Whether red or blue, the prospect of being the one who sends half the city into ecstasy while plunging the other half into despair becomes second nature as soon as they’re old enough to appreciate the age-old Stanley Park rivalry and what it means.
Curtis Jones in the most recent local lad to have written himself into folklore after his stunning FA Cup winner for Liverpool against Everton a little over two and a half years ago when he joined a small but proud list of Scousers who have made themselves the toast of their half of the city.
READ MORE: Former Liverpool and Everton striker David Johnson dies aged 71
But there is only one man to have graduated from the city’s schoolyards and playing fields to have achieved the feat for both Merseyside clubs, a record made even sweeter by the length of time he had to wait to pull the red shirt he dreamed of wearing as a boy.
Growing up in Halewood, there was never doubt over where David Johnson’s initial allegiances would lie having been born into a Liverpool-mad family but, having impressed in youth football, the forward was left with a difficult decision at the age of 15 when Everton as well as the Reds wanted to sign him.
“All my family were Liverpudlians”, he recalled. “In fact, one of my brothers even named his first son Ian St John Johnson! When I was a kid, the whole house was bedecked in red and white and my brothers used to take me to the Kop. I’d watch Liverpool home and away as well as playing football myself so it came as a great shock to the family when I signed for Everton.
“After winning the English schools trophy with the Liverpool schoolboys side, I was lucky to have scouts from both Liverpool and Everton trying to sign me. At the time the Everton scout sold Goodison better than the Liverpool scout did Anfield so I signed for them. I had watched Liverpool throughout the sixties and they fielded virtually the same side week in week out, whereas the Everton scout pointed out Everton had a good youth policy and did give the younger players a chance. So with Everton going through a transitional period, I felt I would have a better chance by going to Goodison.”
After serving his time in the reserves, the 19-year-old was handed a first-team debut January 1971 when Harry Catterick’s reigning champions travelled to take on Burnley at Turf Moor and showed immediately why the Blues were so keen to entice him to Goodison by scoring in a 2-2 draw. The youngster marked his FA Cup debut the following month by scoring the only goal in a fifth round victory over Derby County and weeks later showed a similar liking for continental competition by notching on his European Cup debut as the Toffees drew 1-1 in the first leg of their quarter-final with Greek champions Panathinaikos. He only made a late appearance from the substitutes bench in the return leg a fortnight later in Athens as a goalless draw sent the hosts through to the last four on away goals and three days later Johnson was left out altogether and had to watch from the stands as Liverpool fought back from a goal down at half time to knock the Blues out of the FA Cup at the semi-final stage, a devastating week seen as pivotal in the break-up of Everton’s great side of the late 60s and ultimately Catterick’s reign.
The Blues would win only once more before the end of the campaign, which concluded with defeat in the bizarre and short-lived FA Cup third-place play-off against fellow beaten semi-finalists Stoke City at Selhurst Park, and a poor start to the following season would give Johnson the chance to stake a stronger claim to nail down a place in the side. He followed up a winning goal against Manchester United in late August with another strike in a home victory against Arsenal and by the time the first Merseyside derby of the season came around in late November found himself in line for a first senior appearance against the team he supported as a boy, who ironically were moving quicker through the same kind of transition he was now experiencing at Goodison.
“Almost as soon as I went to Everton, the Liverpool team started to break up but when I look back I don’t regret the decision to go to Goodison”, Johnson said. “As soon as I became an Everton player I was very loyal and, of course, hated Liverpool with the same passion I had hated Everton as a Liverpool fan. Fans don’t understand that you can play for one of the clubs after supporting the other but, as a professional playing for the team, it’s your job and because a club employs you and pays your wages it has a right to expect and receive loyalty.”
The Blues’ poor start to the campaign had seen them hovering just above the relegation placings having only won four out of their first 16 league matches while Bill Shankly’s Reds had loftier aspirations having the week before beaten Double winners Arsenal at Anfield but Johnson showed where his loyalties now lay by putting in a hard-running performance and grabbing the only goal of a tightly-fought encounter nineteen minutes from time.
"Everyone needs a bit of luck and I was fortunate enough to score for Everton on my league debut, my European Cup debut and in my first derby," he proudly remembered. “I remember the goal well. It was a cross from the right by Gary Jones which I headed down towards goal. Ray Clemence pushed it onto the post but I managed to volley in the rebound. The fact it was in front of the Gwladys Street End made it even better and instantly you become a hero on Merseyside. There was no question where my loyalty lay. I had already been at Everton for five years. I was fully integrated into the club and had already played against Liverpool at B team and reserves level."
The Blues’ derby victory was a rare bright moment in a disappointing season which saw them finish 15th in the First Division, an indication of the decade of toil which lay ahead at Goodison, but Johnson’s creditable tally of 11 goals in all competitions for his first full campaign marked him out as one to watch and started to draw envious glances across the division. By the following autumn, he was headed for pastures new but not - as he had hoped and as newspapers had speculated - across Stanley Park, with Everton unwilling to countenance a direct transfer to Liverpool and, although he would later accept it was the right move, he considered quitting football altogether before agreeing to join Ipswich Town in part-exchange for striker Rod Belfitt.
“When I left Everton for Ipswich, it seemed to me like it was the worst time in my life”, he said. “I was Liverpool born-and-bred, and had never considered that I might leave Merseyside. There was even a moment when the thought went through my mind that I might pack football in - but that move made a lot of difference to my career. It didn’t really hit me what leaving Merseyside meant until I’d put pen to paper but fortunately I settled down well and made a lot of friends at Ipswich. As it turned out, it was the best move I could have made because I reckon that became the turning point of my career. There were a lot of factors: I had been signed for a hefty fee, instead of a being a local boy made good ; things were built around me a bit and my own style of play improved ; and the team played well and we had some success. A lot of things rolled into one helped my game.”
Despite his initial reluctance to move to East Anglia, Johnson proved a perfect fit at Portman Road where Bobby Robson was laying the foundations of the thirteen-year reign in charge which would ultimately land him the England manager’s job. After winning the Texaco Cup - a short-lived trophy contested by English, Scottish and Irish clubs who had not qualified for Europe - against local rivals Norwich City in Johnson’s first season, the ‘Tractor Boys’ reached the UEFA Cup quarter-finals the following year, knocking out Real Madrid and Lazio along the way, before being eliminated by Locomotive Leipzig on penalties. Forming a productive partnership up front with Trevor Whymark, Johnson’s intelligent movement and finishing prowess won him a first senior England call-up where he scored twice on his debut against Wales in May 1975 after helping Ipswich to the FA Cup semi-finals and the following summer his dream finally came true when Liverpool came calling.
After following a trophy-less first season in charge having replaced Bill Shankly with a league and UEFA Cup double, Bob Paisley was looking for a long-term replacement for John Toshack and Johnson’s consistency and Liverpudlian credentials proved impossible to ignore. Tottenham Hotspur had made a bid to take him to White Hart Lane but once the 24-year-old knew the team he had supported as a boy from the Kop were interested, there was only ever going to be one destination for him.
“I had four great years under Bobby Robson and there was only one club that would have prised me away from Portman Road and that was Liverpool”, he admitted. “It came right out of the blue. Bobby called me in and said Liverpool had made an offer which they’d accepted and that I should go and have talks with them. So I immediately jumped on a train with no intention whatsoever of returning to Ipswich. They were the club I’d supported as a lad but I thought my chance had gone. Bill Shankly was the manager when I started at Everton and he twice tried to buy me when I was at Goodison but Harry Catterick wouldn’t let me cross the park, it is one of the biggest disappointments of my career that I never got to play for Shanks.
“The first time he tried to sign me was actually when Harry Catterick was in hospital recovering from his heart attack. Shanks went to visit him and tried to kid him by saying ‘Is big Joe Royle for sale?’ even though he had no interest in him. When Harry said ‘No way’, Shanks replied ‘Well what about the young lad Johnson? I’ll take him off your hands then'. But Harry wasn’t taken in and said no. I believe he tried again but Harry wouldn’t sell me to Liverpool, then after I’d gone to Ipswich Bobby Robson called me in to tell me that Shanks had enquired again but that he wouldn’t sell me. It was a big thing for me to know that Shanks wanted me – I’d been a boyhood red. I was part of that crowd in front of the Town Hall when Shanks delivered his incredible speech about making Liverpool into a bastion of invincibility – but I also had great loyalty to Bobby Robson. Knowing that Shanks was interested in me certainly pulled on my loyalty, but it was different then and if a club didn’t want to sell you then you just got on with it, which I did. Shanks was at least a fairly regular visitor to Melwood after I joined and I used to come into training early just so I could sit and listen to him talk to Eli the groundsman. Countless times I’d just sit on the periphery and listen. It was wonderful.
“All Bob Paisley said to me when I arrived at the club was hello, then he put me in a room with John Smith and Peter Robinson. They were the ones who actually signed me. The boss was a man of very few words - probably because no-one could understand what he was on about when he did speak. But what a great manager, no-one has done as much in the game and that includes Alex Ferguson and yet he’s been knighted but Bob hasn’t. What he did for Liverpool FC after taking over from Shanks is unequalled.”
Johnson’s jubilant Liverpool-mad family held a street party to mark his return home following the completion of what was then a club-record £200,000 transfer and he started life at Anfield in the first team, making his debut on the opening day of the season in a 1-0 home win over Norwich and notching his first goal for his boyhood club a week later at Birmingham. Competition for places up front was fierce though with the emergence of another young local-born forward in David Fairclough and star striker Kevin Keegan - who had announced before the campaign he would be leaving to play abroad at the end of it - still in the picture and having long established an effective partnership with Toshack. With Paisley also on occasion opting to play winger Steve Heighway as a deeper-lying link man between midfield and attack, it meant Johnson had to settle for something of a bit-part role but his contribution - which included three goals in the early rounds of the European Cup against Crusaders of Ireland and Turkey’s Trabzonspor - earned him a starting slot in May at Wembley as Paisley’s side, having already retained the league championship, faced Manchester United in the FA Cup final four days before bidding to win an unprecedented treble with the European Cup final in Rome looming against Borussia Moenchengladbach.
Johnson’s inclusion ahead of veteran winger Ian Callaghan was said to be in part due to the FA’s unusual decision not to schedule any potential FA Cup final replay until 21st June due to the Home International fixtures and, after being replaced by Liverpool’s all-time record appearance holder midway through the second half during the Reds' 2-1 defeat at Wembley, the forward had to settle for being an unused substitute in Rome but any professional disappointment was outweighed by the sheer euphoria he felt at the Reds finally becoming champions of Europe for the first time.
"The 1977 final was something else”, Johnson recalled. “We'd been beaten by Man United in the FA Cup final about five days earlier, and the thing that I always remember is that we were all wondering how many supporters had actually made the journey to Rome. We'd had such fantastic support home and away during the league programme, as well as at Wembley, and we knew that following a team home and away wasn't cheap, so when we went away we were wondering how many supporters would be in the stadium cheering us on. We asked a press guy, and we were told about five or six thousand, so you can imagine the players' amazement when we walked out onto that pitch an hour before kick off and it was just jam-packed and bedecked in red and white. You've never seen so many flags, banners and scarfs, and there was no way we were going to get beat - we weren't going to let those supporters down. So to go out there and beat them 3-1, it was a tribute to those supporters, and that's why the lads did it. You could see it in their faces that they weren't going to lose."
Johnson’s hopes that Keegan’s departure to Hamburg would free up opportunities for him in the first team were hampered by the £440,000 British record transfer arrival of Kenny Dalglish from Celtic that summer and, coupled with a series of niggling injuries, the forward was restricted to just a handful of starts during 1977/78 until the end of March when his campaign would burst into life only to be cruelly cut short. Although indifferent league form had scotched aspirations of a third successive title, the Reds had again reached the European Cup semi-finals where the draw pitted them against the side they had beaten in Rome the previous May, Borussia Moenchengladbach. Wilfried Hannes had given the Germans a first-half lead and what looked to be a useful advantage to take back to Merseyside for the second leg when, with just two minutes remaining, Johnson - on as a substitute for Terry McDermott - ghosted into the box to nod home the equaliser and a priceless away goal. Although Rainer Bonhof’s stoppage-time free kick still gave the hosts a 2-1 win on the night, Johnson’s late effort put Paisley’s men firmly on track for a place in the Wembley final and before they confirmed that with a resounding 3-0 win in the Anfield second leg, the Scouse forward delighted his family and the red half of the city by scoring a Merseyside derby for the second time, this time for Liverpool against Everton.
The Blues were still without a win in the fixture since Johnson’s November 1971 strike and, having not made it off the bench in the previous season’s goalless draw at Goodison, the Reds' Scouse forward marked his first appearance on his old stomping ground in Liverpool colours by scoring the only goal of the game in the 13th minute, taking a slide-rule pass from Ray Kennedy and holding off the attentions of defender Mike Pejic before sliding the ball past goalkeeper George Wood. He was felled by a coin thrown from Goodison’s Main Stand enclosure ten minutes later but was able to continue after receiving treatment and, after playing down the incident afterwards as the actions of ‘one idiot’, years later reflected with pride at becoming the first - and, to date, still the only - man to score winning goals for both Liverpool and Everton in the Merseyside derby.
"Well they weren’t too happy! I went to Ipswich in a part exchange deal and then my career took off. I was a virtual ever present in the Ipswich team and they established me as a striker, so when I came back with Liverpool you can imagine the reception I got in my first derby game, which was at Goodison in front of about 68,000! It was a bit hostile to say the least, but it was pleasing in the end because we won 1-0 and I scored! You could say I got my own back!
"I had gone full circle and that day I was playing in the derby wearing the red of Liverpool - the club I had supported as a kid and travelled all over the country to watch. I must admit that goal in front of the Gwladys Street was far sweeter than the one I got for Everton against Liverpool. It's difficult to put into words what it felt like. Scoring goals in cup finals or derbies is what kids dream about when they are kicking a ball around in the streets and I was able to fulfil that dream. The fact that I had played for Everton and then gone back there to score a winner for Liverpool made the stick I got that day even worse. I still don't think Evertonians have forgiven me but I was pleased to get some stick because it meant I had done something right."
It earned Johnson only a seventh league start of the season three days later at home to Leicester but he was replaced after only six minutes by another local lad, Sammy Lee (who would score on his debut in Liverpool’s 3-2 victory) after suffering a serious knee ligament injury which immediately put paid to the forward’s hopes of making up for the previous year by featuring in the imminent European Cup final, leaving him heartbroken but eventually eternally grateful to one of his team-mates who petitioned the rest of the squad to make sure the injured forward received a winners’ medal after Kenny Dalglish’s winner at Wembley beat FC Bruges in the final.
“I’d been playing in the side scoring goals, and I'd played in the semi final to help us get there, scoring in the away leg, so to do my knee ligaments in so badly that they had to be sewn back together.... well obviously there was no way that I could play and I was absolutely devastated. Tommy Smith was exactly the same, Tommy was doing some gardening and stood on a rake, so he couldn't play either!
"It was Stevie Heighway who made sure I got a medal, which I'll always be grateful for. He got all the lads to sign a petition, and they sent it off requesting that another medal be made for me. I never heard any more about it until the next season when I got recalled to the England side. I went along, and someone came up to me and said, ‘Congratulations, welcome back to the England squad’ and gave me a European Cup medal! It was brilliant! To actually get it, well not exactly posthumously, but after the event shall we say, it was still great."
It emphasised how popular a figure in the squad Johnson had become despite having only been at Anfield for two seasons, where he had already earned himself an unusual moniker due to his ever-present bag of supplies which was proving indispensable to the Anfield dressing room.
“My nickname was Doc”, Johnson admitted. “In those days a dressing room was a dressing room, there wasn't all the mod cons that are there now, so you took your own bag in there with all your own shaving gear, shampoo, hair brush and stuff like that. Well I always used to suffer from a sore throat, so there was usually some cough sweets or some sort of potion in my bag, and everyone used to go to my bag to use my gear - no-one ever brought their own, they just used to use mine. Terry McDermott went in there one time and took out all these pills and stuff, and said ‘it's like a flipping doctors bag' - or words to that effect! - and after that it just stuck. Even Joe Fagan and Ronnie Moran took the mickey, and if we were travelling away anywhere they'd always give me all the headache tablets and things and if anyone had anything wrong with them they'd always come to me.
“I didn’t mind though, nicknames are all part of the banter and you've got to have that. Alan Hansen was obviously Big Al, or Jocky, and Graeme Souness was 'Champagne Charlie' or 'Choccy' because someone from the Scotland World Cup squad reckoned if he was a bar of chocolate he'd eat himself. Phil Thompson was 'Tonka Toy' the unbreakable, Alan Kennedy was 'Barney Rubble' although he answered to about ten other names as well. Terry Mac was Cheswick from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest because like Brucie he was a bit crazy as well. You've got to have those types in the dressing room because of the amount of pressure that you're under when you're pushing for top honours and titles. Unless you've got that release that comes from humour, the tension can get to you. You've got to have that blend, the hardmen, the characters, the idiots! We had a fantastic dressing room banter, and that's really important."
Johnson’s recovery from his ankle injury meant it was early September before he was ready to participate in Liverpool’s 1978/79 campaign he came off the bench to score twice in the iconic 7-0 annihilation of a Tottenham side boasting the stars of Argentina’s World Cup triumph earlier that summer, Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa, which set the tone for one of the Reds’ most dominant ever championship successes, Paisley’s men conceding just 16 goals through their 42-game league campaign - only four of them at Anfield - while scoring 85 times and collecting 68 points which under the modern-day three points for a win system would have equated to 98.
A goal in his first start of the season the following month in a 4-1 win over Norwich cemented his place in the side and triggered the richest vein of form of Johnson’s Anfield career where he scored 58 goals in three seasons, linking almost telepathically at times up front with Kenny Dalglish who the Liverpool-born forward was in no doubt at the time was operating on a different level to his team-mates and peers.
"Kenny was the greatest player I've ever played with," he said, "and probably the best player I've ever played against as well, he was that good. When you consider that I've also played against the likes of George Best and Diego Maradona, then that's the highest praise I can give Kenny. What people don't realise, is that he wasn't just a great player, he was also unselfish, and his bravery - something which no-one ever mentions - was something else.
"In our playing days, defenders could tackle from behind, and as Kenny's game was holding the ball up and linking the play, the amount of stick he used to get from defenders sliding in and tackling him from behind was unbelievable. I've seen him in the dressing room afterwards and the backs of his legs were cut to ribbons, but it just shows you how tough he was because he hardly ever missed a game. So he was a great, great player, but brave as well."
Although the back-to-back European champions would suffer first round exits to Nottingham Forest and Dinamo Tbilisi in the autumns of 1978 and 1979 respectively, their domestic dominance remained largely intact with dreams of the hallowed league and FA Cup double - which at the time had only been achieved twice that century - falling just short in both campaigns. Semi-final replay defeat to Manchester United at Goodison Park in April 1979 was followed a year later by a marathon last-four tie against Arsenal which went to a third replay at Coventry’s Highfield Road before Brian Talbot’s header sent the Gunners to Wembley. The FA Cup’s absence from the Anfield trophy cabinet between 1974 and 1986 meant it was the one trophy many of that most decorated set of Liverpool players failed to win but, just two days after the 1980 semi-final heartbreak, Johnson had the satisfaction of scoring the opening and closing goals in the 4-1 defeat of Aston Villa which sealed another league title, Johnson’s third since arriving and the club’s fifth in eight seasons.
"When you think of the amount of success that we had between 76-82, it's very difficult to pick out one memory”, Johnson reflected. “I suppose off the top of my head, the thing that stands is out is that we had the disappointment of those four games in the FA Cup against Arsenal, when we finally got beat on the Thursday after Brian Talbot scored and we lost 1-0. Two days later we played Villa at Anfield to win the league, and I scored two. The fourth goal was at the Kop end with my left foot, and it hit both posts. That to me was brilliant, because it helped erase the disappointment of losing in the semi-final.”
It capped off the most prolific season of Johnson’s Anfield career with 27 goals in 54 appearances and, while injuries would somewhat curtail his involvement the following campaign, it proved to be third time lucky for him in the European Cup. Having assisted the crucial late away goal at Bayern Munich for Ray Kennedy in the semi final which took the Reds to Paris, he started against Real Madrid in the French capital and - somewhat to his surprise and relief - was still on the pitch when the final whistle blew to confirm Liverpool as champions of Europe for the third time in five years after Alan Kennedy’s 81st minute winner.
“That was probably THE highlight of my entire career”, he admitted. “It meant so much to me after being on the bench in '77 and on crutches in '78. This time I actually played, and for the whole 90 minutes too. It wasn’t a great final but I remember it because there was a standing joke between me and Terry McDermott, whereby if anyone was going to be substituted it was usually one of us two. We used to call it the pop-up toaster because they used to have the box with numbers in and we reckoned that someone would kick the box and up would pop the 9 or the 10. Whenever we spotted the subs warming up, we used to look at each other wondering who was going off. When Bob Paisley sent the subs to warm up along the touchline during the second half against Madrid, me and Terry looked at each other with a kind of ‘No he wouldn’t do that to us in the final’ expression and then saw the number 7 being put up. I remember thinking, ‘No there must be some mistake' but he took Kenny off and left me on. So that was the highlight of my career, the night Kenny Dalglish was subbed and not me!”
The emergence of young striker Ian Rush during the spring of 1981 coupled with the Welshman’s rapid progress during the following campaign restricted the opportunities available to Johnson - now into his 30s - and, while he played enough games to win a fourth league championship medal and featured in the League Cup final triumph over Tottenham at Wembley, it was becoming clear his future lay elsewhere. He rejoined Everton for £100,000 in August 1982 before finishing his playing career with spells at Barnsley (on loan), Manchester City, Tulsa Roughnecks in the United States and Preston North End and then going into the insurance industry, retaining involvement in football with a match summariser role on Radio Merseyside and hosting duties in LFC’s corporate lounges.
Johnson’s time with his boyhood club may not have been without its frustrations but they and the length of time it took for him to wear the red shirt he had craved all his life only served to make his accomplishments at Anfield all the sweeter and fill him with an immense sense of pride.
“When I look back at my time with Liverpool, I won 18 medals and I think Liverpool is unique for the catalogue of medals won by its players. I was never a great player but I did play in a great side with some very good players. We had the workhorses, the good players and the great players and it was down to the great management of Bob Paisley that we had such a superb balance. I supported the Reds as a boy, I was a Scouser and given the chance I would choose exactly the same career all over again. I can look back over almost 20 years of football and say I was more than a First Division player. I have medals to keep. And I played for the best team in Europe.”
This story was first published on September 9, 2022.
