Laid To Rest

  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.