The Ex-Files: David Johnson - Ipswich Town News

In the fifth part of our new regular series, The Ex-Files, in which Blair Ferguson chats with Town stars of the past about their time at Portman Road and what they’re up to now, we catch up with David Johnson, the man whose goals fired the Blues into successive play-offs under George Burley’s management.

The sight of David Johnson celebrating a goal became a gratifyingly familiar feature of Town games in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The man known as Johnno made an immediate impact after joining from Bury — then, like the Blues, a second tier side — in November 1997 for deal worth £1.1 million including defender Chris Swailes, who moved in the opposite direction.

The well-spoken and honest ex-striker’s career started right at the top with Manchester United, an understandably intimidating place for a young player to get their first taste of professional football, but one where there is an opportunity for a lot to be learnt.

"It was great, I was young, and I had just come from school,” he recalled. "It was a bit daunting going to Manchester United and everything but it was a great experience and I played with some great players.

"I was unfortunately injured for a long time which didn't help but bar that it was the best experience that got me on the correct route.”

Unable to break into the first team at Old Trafford, Johnson moved to Bury where he soon began scoring goals. This eventually caught the interest of Ipswich, at the time a club in a part of the world unknown to the young striker.

"I got a phone call late in the evening, about half nine, 10 o'clock, and the manager said ‘We've sold you to Ipswich’.

"I just thought to myself ‘Where on earth is Ipswich?’. I didn't have a clue where it was! It was a little bit strange and I drove down in the middle of the night and when I got there I was in a hotel and had a couple of hours’ sleep.

"I didn't know any of the players, it was very difficult but it was the perfect situation for me really."

When asked why it was the perfect situation he let out a laugh before saying, "Because I was with good players!”

In action for Bury

The first game for a new club can be tough, especially when you don’t know the players you’re playing with. When you add in a family allegiance to the opposition and facing one of your heroes it can make for a difficult game. Unless you’re David Johnson.

"When I turned out for my debut at Wolves I didn't know anyone and they didn't know me,” he said.

"I scored and did a silly celebration and after that I was confident and I kept on thinking to myself ‘How are we so far behind everyone when we've got this amazing, exciting team?’. And that was it, we just kicked on.

"My wife’s family were from a place in Shropshire, Telford, and everyone either supported West Brom or Wolves. So they all came to that game and Steve Bull was a bit of a hero of mine because he'd lived in the same town and to play on the same field as him was absolutely amazing.”

At the time, George Burley had three main strikers in James Scowcroft, Alex Mathie and Johnson. When asked who he preferred playing with the 36-year-old is in no doubt.

"Scowy. Because Alex Mathie was a fans’ favourite, bit of a hero, a senior player, had been around a long time, and thought he was the best thing since sliced bread.

"All strikers do when they've been at a club for a while, and I came in, not to replace him, but to add a bit more firepower and I think he just thought I was a young lad who had got to learn the hard way, blah, blah, blah.

Celebrating with Kieron

"I can very rarely remember playing with him, but I’ve always looked at senior players because you've got to learn stuff from them even if they're not the same type of player as you.

"Alex was brilliant, he scored loads of goals and he was a great finisher, he wasn't coming to the end of his career but at that level he was struggling to keep his place every week.

"I preferred playing with Scowy because technically he was absolutely top drawer and he wasn't selfish, that's why I liked him!"

Johnson has fond memories of his time at Town with the 1999/00 play-off semi-final against Bolton near the top of the list. He describes the match as being "an absolute blur" and recalls, " I didn't even realise Jimmy had scored a hat-trick; all I realised was that we were winning."

With this great win came a great celebration with the hat-trick hero, a neighbour during their time at Portman Road: "It was probably the best night I’ve ever had afterwards with Jim Magilton, walking around Ipswich."

The play-off final brought its own set of issues for the Jamaican international with injury hindering his preparations for the game, leaving him with the difficult decision of playing or not, a decision he feels he got wrong.

"I knew I shouldn't have played, I just knew it,” he now admits, having lasted only 22 minutes. "I trained the week before because it was a long time hanging around and I just knew I wasn't going to be fit and it was devastating because George gave me as much time as he could.

"I warmed up and I could see the family and everyone there and we had some great support and I nearly scored after two minutes. If I had scored I would have gone straight off but I tried to keep going.

Another goal goes in

"But with the squad we had, with Marcus Stewart, Scowy and Richard Naylor, it was unfair for me to limp around when we had fantastic players in the squad and on the bench."

When talking about Town’s subsequent first season in the Premier League Johnson says his biggest regret was not applying himself fully. It’s easy to tell by the tone of his voice that looking back this is something he would have changed.

"I think when you go into the Premiership you need some physical presence sometimes when you’re struggling and I think I probably never trained hard enough and thought it would just come naturally. Marcus clicked and he was the one that played with Scowy and did a fantastic job.

"That was my biggest regret, I went into that Premiership season and started off OK and George had to make a decision and that decision was that we would go with one and that was Scowy.

"As I said before, he was technically superb and that's the reason why he played in the Premiership more than I did.”

With Burley bringing in new recruits Johnson felt he was at the bottom of a growing list of strikers. With him wanting to play football he made the difficult decision to leave, although this might have been avoided.

"If I had hung around until the end of the season I think it would have been a lot better for me because I think I probably would have ended up staying but we brought in Alun Armstrong and other players.

"George got that taste of being a Premiership manager who could go out and get players and I was going further and further down the pecking order where I still believe, apart from Marcus, I could score more goals than anyone, as long as I was fit and I still have that belief.

"I didn't want to be second fiddle to, not Marcus as such, but I didn't want to be second fiddle. I was 24, I felt I should be playing regular football and if that meant me dropping down a league then so be it."

There was a good spirit in the squad during his time at Town with the banter and jokes flying around, Johnson remembers one particular story involving his watch.

"I had bought this new watch from the jewellers in town, spent a few quid on it and at the time Adam Tanner was injured.

And another

"Every day he used to wait until all the players went out and put my watch back an hour behind and I used to get back from training and think 'I’ve got the bloody wrong time here!'.

"I thought ‘I’ve had enough, I paid two grand for this watch’, so I sent it back to the jewellers and they sent it back to the factory and they couldn't find anything wrong with it.

"I got it back three months later and the lads told me after about two weeks and basically I was the butt of everyone's joke!"

Having decided it was time for a move, his destination was Nottingham Forest on a three and a half-year deal, a place where he still lives. However, upon his arrival he realised the club was in disarray.

"The team was up in arms. It was the wrong time to join a club. I loved it to be fair but it just didn't work out how I wanted it to when I first signed there and after the end of that season they went into administration and they were struggling and they sold all the players.

"Obviously, I was a high earner at the time and they wanted rid of me. I wanted to leave before I actually started but it was just joining the club at the wrong time and every time I looked at the papers my former club were flying.

"I found it difficult because every club I'd been to I'd settled very quickly and this was the first time where I was up against it and I hadn't scored on my debut. Everyone was saying ‘We've spent all this money, what a waste’.”

During his time at Town and Forest, Johnson had an international career that he describes as a "mess". Whilst he wanted the recognition that comes from playing international football, he also realised the effects that playing for Jamaica, the country of his birth, could have on his club football.

"I decided very early on that playing for Jamaica was too much travelling and I would miss too many games for Ipswich so I decided to knock it on the head,” he said.

"If I had played for one of the home nations at the time then I would still get the same international recognition that I wanted.”

In the Premiership with Town

It emerged that as a holder of a UK passport but not born in any of the home countries, Johnson might be eligible for any of them and soon the national coaches came calling.

"I was asked by Northern Ireland,” he remembers, "but I thought Wales had a better chance because they had Giggs, Bellamy, Hartson, Hughes and all these types of players and that was the route I wanted to go.

"It seems like a laugh and a joke now but I went around and had a look at all these different countries before I decided to play for one. But I thought ‘I'm going to concentrate on my league club and go from there’ because I thought I didn't really want to play international football.”

However, the second regret relating to his career centres around international football: "The only thing I regret was that I was asked to play in the World Cup in France for Jamaica and there was a game in between the play-offs, in Wales.

"I was asked to play and I said no because it was going to ruin the preparation of me playing in the play-offs. So I decided not to and they decided to take a different squad. That was my only regret; I had the chance to play at a World Cup.”

Having ultimately made a success of his Forest move, Johnson’s career was brought to an early end due to a back injury in 2006. We are hearing more and more examples of footballers struggling to adjust to life after football and he was no exception.

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Celebrating one of the many goals he scored against Town for Forest at Portman Road

"It was a lot more difficult than I thought,” he admits. "It's taken three or four years to get over it properly. Over the last few years I’ve thought ‘Yeah, I'm fine I can't play’, but those three or four years were difficult.

"The way I got over it was by going on holiday constantly and enjoying life without working and then it dawns on you that you can't play any more, you've got no qualifications and you ask ‘What am I going to do?’. I’ve been really fortunate that I've stayed in football with whatever job I’ve done."

After his sabbatical from work Johnson tried his hand in the world of football agency before getting a scouting job with current European Champions, Chelsea.

"I work for Chelsea as one of the international scouts so basically I’ve got an area to look after and we look to get players in from England and around the world. It's a massive scouting network we have.”

Having watched a lot of local side Forest he has an informed and well put opinion on Town's Luke Chambers and David McGoldrick.

"I think Luke had a fantastic season under Billy Davies, he built a rock solid partnership with Wes Morgan, but players left and the team struggled.

"Just like goalies, defenders are in the same boat in that when goals go in it’s your fault and because he was captain of the team he took a lot of criticism. He wanted to stay but they couldn't get a contract sorted and he ended up leaving.

"I watched McGoldrick at Coventry and he's absolutely fantastic. He's technically brilliant and this could be the right move for him.

"But at Forest, it's happened to so many strikers, it's a graveyard and he was one of the ones that never got the chance or the opportunity to show everyone how good he was, but he did at Coventry.”

The final topic up for discussion was Johnson’s Twitter account. For those of you who don’t have Twitter or don’t follow him you have missed his views on many subjects. He admits he sometimes overlooks the fact that people read it.

"I actually forget that people follow me. A lot of Ipswich fans always say to me ‘What do you think about Ipswich?’ and they always think I'm more favourable about Forest, but I actually watch Forest quite a lot and what I won't ever do is comment about a club that I don't know anything about.”

And today

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