ANDO: Why everyone loves Steve Johnson, a throwback to a different footy era

IN a game that becomes more sanitised by the round, Steve Johnson has been the breath of fresh air we’ve desperately hung onto, JON ANDERSON writes.

IN a game that becomes more sanitised by the round, Steve Johnson has been the breath of fresh air we’ve desperately hung onto.

The awkward-running boy from the Wangaratta Magpies who could make a Tom Sherrin talk, whether kicking across his body for goal with ease from an outrageous angle or spotting a teammate while his eyes seem to be focused elsewhere.

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He has been a throwback to a different era, someone who seemed made for the moments that mattered most on the playing field, while off it he came across as the bloke you would be sharing a pot and parma with in the front bar of your local.

Steve Johnson lit up the MCG in the 2007 grand final.

His 2007 story is the stuff of legend, banned for five matches by Geelong’s senior playing group for a drink-related incident before returning to stand on the Premiership dais with a Norm Smith medal around his neck, his name already having been read out on the half forward line of the All Australian side.

To think he had almost been traded the year before when Collingwood and Essendon courted him, before those clubs shied away when doubts arose over the longevity of ankles that had been injured in 2003 when he fell while attempting to regain entry to a Torquay Hotel.

That was Johnson then, a fun-loving country kid who liked a beer but in reality never hurt anyone but himself. And he was hard not to love, Stevie J as he would become having a cheeky grin and natural confidence.

Johnson was always front and centre of Geelong’s famous Mad Monday celebrations.

He has always known he had more skill than most, and at times was happy to point out to opponents how lucky they were to be getting front row seats to the Stevie J show.

His exquisite skills have sometimes overshadowed his hardness, Johnson dishing out any number of bone crunching hip and shoulders when you could still deliver them, and playing with pain that others weren’t able to ignore.

That he not only got onto the ground for the 2011 Grand Final against Collingwood but then kicked four goals is testament to someone who overcame a dislocated knee and damaged ligaments suffered just seven days earlier.

You’ve come a long way, Stevie — Geelong, 2002.

Stevie J at GWS, this season.

It remains a strange quirk of the system that Johnson has never finished top five in a club best and fairest and casts doubt over the accuracy of such awards given he would have been in the first three or four picked when at his peak.

Has he tarnished his legacy by joining GWS after the Cats ended their relationship in 2015? Not in the slightest given his 2016 season was excellent and he remains a chance to play in another flag side this season.

As a Geelong supporter I will remember him with genuine joy, a player who in his own way matched the likes of Gary Ablett snr, John Sharrock, Polly Farmer, Denis Marshall and Michael Turner for sheer entertainment value.