Footy loses one of the great sledgers with Steve Johnson’s retirement
THE game will lose one of its great on-field comedians when Steve Johnson hangs up the boots. Join us on a trip down memory lane to relive some of his best one-liners.
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ON-FIELD banter is a dying art in the AFL and the game will lose one of its great on-field comedians when Steve Johnson hangs up the boots.
Johnson today announced 2017 would be his last season, retiring after 16 seasons and just short of 300 games.
There have been controversies around sledges this year digging into players’ personal lives, their partners or throwing out insults you just can’t say any more, especially when you’re near an umpire wearing a microphone.
Despite his reputation as a great sledger, Stevie J never got in that kind of trouble. He has relied on his wit and supreme self confidence to gain an edge over opponents.
JON ANDERSON: THE LAST OF THE LOVEABLE ROGUES
Telling a young GWS teammate “I’ve got more premierships than you’ve played games” was about as personal as it got.
Here are some of his greatest hits.
CASH OR CREDIT?
Johnson delivered one of his best lines to Gold Coast opponent Campbell Brown during Geelong’s first game against the Suns in 2011.
“It was the opening night of Metricon Stadium ... Stevie J kicked seven. I didn’t start on him but he certainly kicked the last four or five on me,” Brown told Triple M recently.
“Halfway through the last quarter when he kicked his seventh he came running up to me and started screaming into my face ‘Cash or credit, cash or credit’ and I just said, ‘What are you talking about, mate?’. He didn’t reply he just kept saying that.
“The next day at recovery I went up to Gaz (Gary Ablett) and I said, ‘I’m not sure if this means anything to you, Gaz, but last night Stevie started yelling out, ‘Cash or credit’. He just started laughing his head off and said, ‘That means you had front-row tickets to the Stevie J show and how did you want to pay for that?’.”
JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED
Johnson had 36 disposals in Friday night blockbuster against the Western Bulldogs in 2012, dividing his time between the midfield and forward line.
When playing close to goal he was minded by Bob Murphy, who recounted the experience in a newspaper column the next week.
“At one point, as I did what I could to stay close, he stopped, gathered, spun and handballed over his head,” Murphy wrote. “All that was missing was his cape.”
“By halfway through the third quarter he was the most influential player on the ground, but still hadn’t hurt us on the scoreboard. It was at this point that he turned to me and said, ‘I’ve almost halfway run this flu out!’.”
BOB COPS IT AGAIN
Murphy has been on the end of plenty of Johnson classics over the years and recounted another on SEN this year that revealed Johnson was a fan of Murphy’s rascal of the week segment on AFL360.
“At one point he walked around boundary line and hid behind the point post,” Murphy said. “He walked up to me afterwards and said, ‘Did you see me sneak on?’. I said, ‘Well, clearly not’ and he just looked at me with a wink and said, ‘It was quite rascallish, wasn’t it?’.”
CALL ME NORM
Johnson starred in the 2007 Grand Final, finishing with 23 disposals and four goals — and clearly knew he was ‘on’.
He finished with the Norm Smith Medal and, according to premiership teammate Shannon Byrnes, would have been filthy if he wasn’t awarded the medal.
“I was yelling out to him actually just to get him into structure and he wasn’t answering and he said, ‘It’s not my name, my name’s Norm’,” Byrnes told SEN today.
“Halfway through the third (quarter) of ’07 he changed the name to Norm, so he was pretty confident he’d be up on the stage twice that day. We were going well, the team were going well. But he thought he was going even better than that.”
ON THE RECEIVING END
Sledging is a two-way street and Johnson copped a beauty this year from an unlikely candidate.
Young Adelaide defender Jake Kelly, who also happens to be the son of former Collingwood defender and TLA player manager Craig Kelly, humbled the now GWS star.
Craig has managed Johnson throughout the latter’s stellar career.
“Stevie J was into (Kelly),” Crows captain Taylor Walker told Triple M Adelaide.
“He said, ‘Stevie, don’t talk to me like that mate — you’ve been paying for my business class tickets to Europe for the past six years’.
“I think Stevie put his head down and walked off. He said, ‘That’s one of the best, young fella’.”
MORE STEVIE J GOLD
Byrnes revealed more classic Stevie J stories during his hilarious radio interview. Here are some of the highlights:
ON JOHNSON BEING A COMPETITIVE BEAST …
“He’s a competitive bastard, I can tell you that much. Any time we’d play anything he’d turn it into a comp. I remember playing table tennis the first few times against him and any time he’d lose table tennis is was because he was restricted by a piece of clothing. So every time he lost a set he’d lose a piece of clothing and people would come over and I’d be playing him in his jocks.”
ON JOHNSON’S RELATIONSHIP WITH COACH MARK THOMPSON AND TEAMMATES …
“I reckon it was a bit of love-hate. It probably went both ways for his teammates because he’d cost you a goal and then he’d kick you three in the last 10 minutes to win you the game. You couldn’t stay angry with him for too long because you knew he had something up his sleeve at the end of the game. He was just one of those special players.”
ON JOHNSON STARTING THE ‘J-CURVE’ SNAP …
“Now he claims every snap that ever goes through has got his stamp on it.”
ON JOHNSON’S LOVE OF A BEER …
“He does enjoy an ale. He’s not one for sharing his feelings. I remember one time we were out he said, ‘I love you’. I said, ‘Is that you talking or the beer?’ and he said ‘No, that’s me talking to the beer’.”
ON JOHNSON BEING EJECTED FROM THE TORQUAY HOTEL IN 2007 BEFORE TRYING TO SNEAK BACK IN …
“He got kicked out and he had this plan. There’s a beer garden out the back there and we’re all standing out the back in a circle and he just had in his mind that he was going to come around and jump off the roof and land in the circle, grab a beer off the bloke next to him as if he’d never left. The only problem with that was he jumped from a two-storey drive-through bottle-o and he’s broken both ankles on landing. To his credit he walked straight out. I followed him out. I thought I’d better check on him here because he’s hit the deck pretty hard. And he’s just sitting in the gutter and he said, ‘Both ankles, gone’.”
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