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Personal
Fullname: Thomas Johnson
aka: Tommy Johnson
Born: 15 January 1971
Birthplace: Gateshead, England
Signed: 27 March 1997
Left: 1 June 2001
Position: Striker
Debut: Raith Rovers 1-1 Celtic, League, 5 Apr 1997
Internationals: England U21 (7 caps, 2 goals)
Biog
“I still grin about it now, it was the best season of my career.”
Tommy Johnson on 1997-98 season
Tommy Johnson was born on 15th January 1971 in Newcastle, England. Johnson began his career as a trainee at Notts County, helping the Magpies reach the top flight in the early 1990s, before moving to Derby County and then Aston Villa – both in £1m+ moves.
In 1997 he joined Celtic for £2.3m, but saw his career at the Hoops cut short by injury, and was Tommy Burns’ last foray in the transfer market.
He made his debut coming off the bench in a 1-1 draw with Raith Rovers, but at the time every question was really over the future of manager Tommy Burns who ended up standing down at the end of the season. So he had arrived at a difficult time at Celtic.
He was in practise mostly a squad player, and managed to see Celtic through with around five different managers in his time, not an easy period but there were still some great highs along the way. However, with his pricetag, he never managed to live up to expectations. The goals/game ratio must be taken in light of that this was spread over four seasons, with relatively few games played.
Also most of his goals were against low level sides, and that includes his European competition goals too.
He was generally very well liked by the supporters despite many being frustrated by his absences. He spent lengthy spells out the first side, and earned the tag of ‘sicknote‘.
Over his time, at Celtic he was part of some great success at Celtic Park, which most notably included scoring the goal which won the 2000/01 Scottish Premier League title – as the Bhoys won the Scottish domestic treble and he netted in the 2000 CIS Insurance Cup final win over Aberdeen. Although the goal which won Celtic the 2000/01 title was a little fortuitous but in many ways reflected his time at Celtic.
For the classic ‘One in a Row’ season in 1997-98 when Celtic finally won the league title to stop Rangers march to ten titles in a row, he only played two games early in the season before being out injured, and so missed a vital and incredible season. He didn’t play again for Celtic until late into May 1999, but scored twice in his first game after long away with both goals v Dunfermline in a 2-1 victory and then a single goal in a 3-2 victory over Aberdeen the next week. He seemed to have a good knack of scoring v Aberdeen for some reason that included a hat-trick in a 5-1 win in May 2000 (albeit the league title race was over at this point).
His best form was under interim Celtic manager Kenny Dalglish in the first half of 2000, one of the few players who seemed to do well in that period as Celtic were in the doldrums. Scored a goal in the 2-0 win over Aberdeen in the league cup final to win Celtic some silverware in an otherwise forgettable season.
After scoring a hat-trick v Dundee in a 6-2 win, he ended up overshadowing the debut of Raphael Scheidt at Celtic, with former Celtic manager Tommy Burns stating warmly on Johnson:
“Maybe people will see now why I bought him. He is a great boy though. I knew he was going to do well tonight because he was flying in training, and he’s a good foil for Mark Viduka and Moravcik.”
Once Martin O’Neill came in to take the helm, Johnson was still regularly played but curiously struggled for goals, albeit it was Larsson and Sutton who were relied on for goals. It was clear to all that Johnson was NOT going to be one for the long-run in the new regime.
One personal favourite moment for the fans with Johnson was when Celtic won the league in O’Neill’s first season v St Mirren. In the match he scored the winner against Ludovic Roy, and then after the match the players were getting interviewed on the park. Next thing you know, Johnson jumped on the back of one his fellow player when he was getting interviewed and said in his squeaky, cheeky wee Geordie accent: “Whay aye man………we’ve won the leeeeeeaaaggggguuuuueeeee!!!!!!!!!!”
At the end of the day, for the duration he was at Celtic, he played in a limited number of games and never fully reached the levels he could have. Yet still he had a very impressive scoring record. Possibly without the injuries he could have gone on to accomplish what his early career had initially promised. Then again there were others such as Larsson, Brattback and Viduka ahead of him in the queue, and he never convinced that he ever deserved to be ahead of them (not that he was fit or available enough times to test the question).
During his time at Celtic, Johnson had been briefly loaned out to Everton 1999. Next stop was Sheffield Wednesday for Johnson when his time at Celtic Park came to an end.
He then moved on to Kilmarnock before joining Gillingham in December 2001. Johnson was at Gillingham for over two seasons before joining Sheffield United. He only made one appearance at the club before moving on to Scunthorpe United. Injuries again plagued his career with ‘The Iron‘ which led to some unnecessary pithy comments from supporters to question if he was really a professional footballer and not just someone in it for the money.
During his time at Scunthorpe United he was loaned out to Tamworth, who he later joined, but was released at the start of the 2006/07 season. On 10 September 2006 he signed for Polymac Services Midland Football Alliance club Rocester FC.
He later moved into lower tier coaching.
We wished him all the best.
Quotes
“I still grin about it now, it was the best season of my career.”
Tommy Johnson on 1997-98 season, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI0NlOCz0lQ
“That was actually in pre-season in Norway. But we went to Portugal on the winter break as well. And that was when we first started working with him. We were sitting there, Tommy [Johnson], Craig [Burley] and [Alan] Stubbsy were all in Norway and in a wee coffee shop. Tommy Johnson was sitting with a cup of Coca Cola and John, the manager, took a drink of it to see if it was alcohol, which it wasn’t, but he kind of lost them straight away from pre-season.”
Jackie McNamara revealed an incident between the ex-Hoops boss and key first-team players pre-season which demonstrated John Barnes got off on wrong foot with all (2023)
Playing Career
| Club | From | To | Fee | League | FA/Scottish Cup | League cup | Other | ||||
| Tamworth | 28/02/2006 | 07/05/2006 | Loan | No appearance data available | |||||||
| Scunthorpe | 13/06/2005 | 08/05/2006 | Free | 3 (11) | 1 | 0 (1) | 1 | 0 (1) | 0 | 2 (1) | 1 |
| Sheff Utd | 09/02/2005 | 13/06/2005 | Free | 1 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Gillingham | 05/07/2002 | 09/02/2005 | Free | 20 (29) | 7 | 2 (1) | 1 | 0 (4) | 1 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Kilmarnock | 22/12/2001 | 05/07/2002 | Free | 7 (3) | 7 | 1 (1) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Sheff Wed | 06/09/2001 | 22/12/2001 | Free | 8 (0) | 3 | 0 (0) | 0 | 1 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Everton | 24/09/1999 | 25/11/1999 | Loan | 0 (3) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Celtic | 27/03/1997 | 01/06/2001 | £2,300,000 | 23 (12) | 18 | 2 (5) | 1 | 3 (1) | 3 | 0 (4) | 1 |
| Aston Villa | 06/01/1995 | 27/03/1997 | £1,450,000 | 38 (19) | 13 | 5 (2) | 1 | 5 (0) | 2 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Derby | 12/03/1992 | 06/01/1995 | £1,300,000 | 91 (7) | 30 | 5 (0) | 1 | 9 (1) | 2 | 16 (0) | 8 |
| Notts Co | 19/01/1989 | 12/03/1992 | Trainee | 100 (18) | 47 | 3 (2) | 1 | 7 (2) | 5 | 14 (3) | 4 |
| Totals | £5,050,000 | 291 (102) | 126 | 18 (12) | 6 | 25 (9) | 13 | 32 (8) | 14 | ||
| goals / game | 0.32 | 0.2 | 0.38 | 0.35 | |||||||
| Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||||
Honours with Celtic
Scottish Premier League
Scottish League Cup
Scottish Cup