Craig Johnston Interview

“It was like an out-of-body experience. It wasn’t just scoring a goal, it was a culmination of everything.”

Liverpool v Everton
FA Cup Final, Wembley Stadium, London
May 10, 1986

Australia’s Craig Johnston played a vital role in the most hyped FA Cup final in living memory.

Back in 1980s, when football was a game for “sheilas, wogs and poofters” to borrow the title of a famous book about Australian soccer, Craig Johnston was blazing a lone trail at Liverpool, the only Aussie

in the English top flight. His success – five league championships, three league cups, one FA Cup and one European Cup in seven years with Liverpool – did a great deal to advance the game in this country.

The personal highlight of Johnston’s glittering career was scoring a crucial goal in the first all-Merseyside FA Cup final to clinch the league and cup double over bitter rivals Everton.

“The hype, emotion and pressure had been building and building for a month,” recalls Johnston. “Living in a city completely obsessed with these two football teams, there was absolutely no escape. I couldn’t walk down the street without someone saying: ‘Ah, Craig, I love you, my wife loves you and my daughter loves you’ and then a second later someone else would come up and say: ‘You’re a wanker. I fucking hate you, you’re a fucking twat.’ They both really believed what they said. How do you live with that?”

The most intense rivalry in domestic football had reached its pinnacle. “Liverpool had just pipped Everton to the league title so this cup final had become the biggest game the city has ever known – like the Superbowl, the Masters and the Ashes rolled into one. You could see it in the media, you could see it on the streets, you could see it in your team-mates’ eyes. I couldn’t wait for it to be over.”

Liverpool were one-nil down at half-time. Ian Rush equalised with a goal that an over-enthusiastic Johnston very nearly poached, famously sliding into the goalmouth. “It’s a good job I didn’t touch the ball before it was over the line or it might have been chalked off for offside,” says Johnston. “That doesn’t bear thinking about.”

Johnston didn’t have long to wait to score a legitimate goal, an instinctive tap-in at the far post. “It’s indescribable, almost an out of body experience, like what I used to dream about when I was a kid. I didn’t hear the crowd at all at that precise moment, it was almost silent in my head. And then when I put it in, it all rushed back, the sound, the colour, the speed. I wheeled away saying: ‘I did it’. It wasn’t just scoring a goal, it was a culmination of everything: moving from Newcastle NSW to England, joining Liverpool, getting to the cup final, scoring a goal. And it all came down to a tap-in.”

Johnston has preserved what blurred memories he has of the match by not watching it again. But he will never forget what his player-manager Kenny Dalglish said to him after the game. “We got in the elevator together back at the hotel on our way down to join the rest of the lads for a big night out. The elevator got stuck and it was a bit awkward because he was the boss, he was King Kenny. He broke the silence by saying ‘Enjoy it son, it doesn’t get any better than this’. And it didn’t.”