When Richard Johnson describes a goal as the best he’s ever scored, that’s really saying something. The Australian schemer had a rocket of a right foot, a left one to match, and the majority of his 22 goals for the club came from distance with style.
On a bright Saturday afternoon in August 1998, Johnson hit two stunners in a 4-1 rout at Bristol City and describes the first, an eighth-minute volley from 30 yards following a cleared cross, as his all-time favourite.
“I always get asked what my favourite goal ever was, and I would say that would have to be it,” he said. “I just caught it so sweetly and it flew off the foot and caught the keeper unawares. With the pace of it, he couldn’t tip it over, and he made it look even better because he knocked it onto the bar and he fell in the net as well!”
It was pretty much the first time the midfielder had kicked a competitive ball that season following a thigh strain, and it almost looked like a release of frustration from having missed the opening weeks.
“It was just good to be back out on the pitch,” he recalled. “I think Gibbo crossed it from the right and it got headed out from just inside the box. It just all went in slow motion for me, the ball sort of floated and I thought I’ll just have a crack and I couldn’t have caught it any better.”
There wouldn’t be another goal for 50 minutes, but Johnson remembers the Hornets being relatively comfortable in the match between two newly-promoted teams. When Watford finally got their two-goal cushion, they would have it taken away and re-restored within minutes. Darren Yates tapped in to make it 2-0 and Søren Anderson then pulled one back for the Robins before once again the ball fell to Johnson within range.
“That was from a corner, I remember Micah just laid it off for me,” he said. “I just try to hit it as hard as I can and where they go, sometimes they’re in Row Z, sometimes the back of the net. But I caught that sweetly as well and the keeper had no chance. It stayed about a foot off the ground until it bounced just before the line, if I can remember rightly.
“The relationship we had as a midfield was incredible. Micah especially, he had so much skill, he used to say he had the guile, and I had the power. He was good to play with, we understood each other’s game and it worked really well. Most of the teams we played against had three in midfield, so Graham would say ‘That’s it, it’s you two, you’ve got to mark one-and-a-half each!’”
Johnson certainly had his shooting boots on in Somerset – bright green ones, in fact.
He said: “I had a new pair of boots on as well that day! They were Lotto. I’d been approached by them at the start of the season to see if I’d wear the boots and they were straight out of the box that day, they hadn’t been worn. You had to be some player if you wanted to wear coloured boots, it just wasn’t the done thing in our day. Plus if I’d have worn white boots my dad from Australia would have been on the phone straight away saying ‘What are you doing?!’”
Alon Hazan finished a counter-attack to round off the scoring and Watford had thumped Bristol City, rubbing salt in the wound after pipping the Robins to the Division Two title just a few months prior. The triumphs were made sweeter as a section of City supporters had prematurely declared themselves champions before Watford’s late leapfrog, and Johnson was well aware how much this one meant to the Hornets faithful.
“You feel it with every game, but especially from the previous game when they had the banner up saying ‘Champions’. There was always a bit of needle there,” he said. “The support at Bristol City was always pretty good so we knew it was going to be a good crowd, but to go and win 4-1, we probably didn’t expect that before the game. I remember the fans were jumping around and going nuts, so it was a good day for them and for us.”
It would turn out to be contrasting seasons for the two sides, as Bristol City fell immediately back down to the third tier while Watford earned back-to-back promotions via the play-offs.
“You never know how a season’s going to go completely but obviously winning the championship the season before we were confident anyway,” said Johnson. “There were a couple of additions to the team, it was just a progression, a roll on if you like. When you get promoted into any league you’re just looking for stability really, but to get a double promotion with the season we had was just incredible.
“We were a unit, a good team, a great bunch of players. Probably not the most talented individually when you look at some of the other sides in the division, but we knew how to grind out results. I owe Graham Taylor a great deal for that period in my career, because he showed faith in me when he came back and before that I’d sort of played a bit part, but Graham saw something in me and I had a run in the team.”
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