Laid To Rest
Jamie Barnard on how English football must learn the lesson of
Michael Johnson...
He had the world at his feet. But
in one hand he clutched a pint glass, the other a wad of cash which belied his
tender years if not his wondrous potential. At the age of 24 Michael Johnson’s
football career has been laid to rest.
Queuing up to write the obituary
were some of those that have played and managed at the top of the game. Roberto
Mancini’s epitaph read: “He was a guy with a big talent. I am sad for this and
for him, because he could do everything with his talent”. Johnson’s credentials
already consigned to Manchester City’s past by their prosperous present.
Euthanasia or assisted suicide,
Manchester City have terminated Johnson’s contract and paid off what remained
of the five year deal that he signed in 2009. Back then, Johnson’s star burned
bright, a product of a rejuvenated Manchester City youth academy. A hot
prospect talked about in the same breath as Gascoigne, but the essence of that
breath endures. Both stars burned to ashes, and the breath is tainted with
alcohol.
Too much, too soon. Johnson had it all. But such an assertion
does not give reference to the virtues of his talent. Whilst blessed with the
attributes to reach the very heights of the international game, and talent such
as Johnson’s are gifted and not gained, his spoils became more financial than
footballing. Handed a £25,000 per week pay packet at the age of 21, the bright
lights and sounds of temptation and over-indulgence only served to mask the toll
of death knocking at the door of Michael Johnson’s career.
“The
guy has everything in front of him” Mark Hughes said. Little did he know that
the everything he spoke of for his young star was material. Contrast this with
the resigned statement released by Johnson himself in wake of the culmination
of his career: “I am more disappointed than anyone but that’s the way it
goes.” File alongside Messrs Collymore, Gascoigne, Merson. Supremely talented
English products. Had it, yet lost it, all.
It was October 2006 when Michael
Johnson burst onto the scene. The brightest hope of a club that had been to the
darkest depths of its history, Johnson appeared to embody the new Manchester
City; expectant, blessed and opulent. An eye for a goal, a killer pass, Johnson
graduated with distinction from a class whose alumnus includes Hart, Onuoha,
Ireland and Richards. On the terraces they prophesised, envious eyes were cast
towards Eastlands, and Liverpool offered up £10million for his services.
They endure as nothing but
anecdotes.
Now when people talk about the passing of
Michael Johnson it gives reference only to the traits he displayed only to
fritter away: "An excellent player. Everyone thought he would become the
next big star for England" Sven Goran Eriksson recently reflected. And in
such high regard he was held by his team mates that he was christened ‘FEC’.
The meaning? ‘Future England Captain’.
From FEC to RIP, Johnson was read
his final rights at Leicester City. Loaned out for a season in Sven Goran
Eriksson’s summer of free-spending, in exchange for £1million Leicester took
delivery of an unfit and overweight Johnson. Shades of the former player
remained. The strike of a ball, the touch and vision. Hidden beneath a bloated
and tired façade were the remnants of a player. But having once chased the
dream, Michael Johnson was now chasing shadows.
That loan deal was cut short less
than six months later in January. The reason given an unspecified injury; vague
in its nature yet mortifyingly ominous in its effect. Johnson returned to
Manchester City only to collect the final nail for the coffin of his career.
To think what could, or even what
should, have been paints a picture of Johnson’s future which is grim in its
nature: “I have been attending the Priory Clinic for a number of years now with
regard to my mental health and would be grateful if I could now be left alone
to live the rest of my life” he says. The money, the fame, the power. Such
mind-blowing things handed to him at such a tender age have seemingly ruined
him.
Hopeful support for Johnson from
the terraces never wavered, even in what are halcyon days for Manchester City,
but the support off the pitch as he battled injury and exile was conspicuous in
its absence. Mental health is not football’s consideration.
The lessons are there, in that respect Johnson
is no trail blazer. Just a couple of weeks since news of Johnson’s demise
broke, even sadder news of Paul Gascoigne’s continued struggles were once again
caught in that dilemma of being front or back page news. Gazza’s troubles are in
their monotony no longer headline-makers, yet far from the footballing exploits
which once upon a time peppered the back pages.
Football’s great solution is
money. But money alone does not heal the ill mental health of a retired or
injured pro trying to replace that kick, that euphoric rush of adrenalin, which
only football brought to their life. The Professional Footballer’s Association
speak of the money they have spent sending Gascoigne to clinics, the time and
support they have given him in battling his addictions. He was the darling of
the nation though; support for support for Gazza comes easy.
What about the rest?
Johnson’s predicament received
publicity only because of what might have been. What he might have given us and
the tragic ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ of the potential he once displayed. In his
autobiography Neil Lennon talks quite openly of the crippling depression he
battled, alone, throughout his playing career. Lower down the football pyramid there
must be players suffering the same afflictions he did. The same difficulties but
without the same profile or platform to ask for help.
Through its promotion of organisations
such as Sporting Chance the Professional Footballer’s Association is making
strides in terms of the support it offers its members, but it needs to do more
so that the path trodden by Johnson and Gascoigne is not taken by the next
bright prospect England produces. Like no other football nation in the world, England
produces world beaters who just can’t beat themselves.
Forty-seven years of collective hurt
littered with individual suffering.
And so for Michael Johnson the
goals now become of a tentative kind, to, in place of footballs, start kicking
the habits that killed his career. The legacy he leaves may not be of the
spectacular football kind once hoped for in his inauguration, but if English
football can learn from the lesson of Michael Johnson it may be greater than he
could ever have imagined.
English football would be mad not
to heed the warning of Michael Johnson.
