Johnston on the Anfield rap

Johnston on the Anfield rap

In an interview with FourFourTwo magazine, former Reds winger Craig Johnston talks about life after football and The Anfield Rap.

What are you up to?
 
I've basically stopped everything I do including coaching kids and developing shoes and I'm exclusively a photographer. I've walked away from football and coaching. I had a photography exhibition in Orlando that went really well and was well received by the art crowd. I do a lot of photography for Sotheby's, the auction house. I specialise in sculpture and still life. And I recently photographed Tiger Woods for Tag Heuer. That was my first real paying job as a photographer. I've been doing it for years for free. I'm hooked on it now as a career.
 
Where did your interest come from?
 
In Middlesbrough my first wage was £8. It was an amazing place - cobbled streets, misty mornings - and there was a camera shop on the way to Ayresome Park. In the window was a second-hand German camera called a Zenith EM and the moment I saw it I knew I wanted it. I had to save up £64 – so eight weeks' wages – to buy this camera. As I got more successful at soccer and earned more money I was able to buy more expensive photographic equipment and when I moved to Liverpool I actually started a photography business in Bold Street. And in my home at Anfield Park I had a darkroom with the old fashioned enlarger and the chemicals. I was making money playing football but almost every penny of it I spent on photography.
 
How did your passion fit with other footballers?
 
I think they found it an annoyance to start with because I always had a camera in their face, but then when they saw the quality of work they would say, 'Oh can I bring my kids over to your house to take some family pictures?' I photographed Alan Hansen or Graeme Souness and his kids. I also did Rushie and Mark Hughes together with Porsches. I had a lot of the players over to my house and I've still got all the pictures somewhere. One day I'll have to do a book. I'd photograph them in black and white and develop them and hand colour them.
 
Is it true you wrote the Anfield rap?
 
Absolutely. Conceived, wrote it, directed the video. I went to London and sought out a guy called Derek B who was Britain's first ever rapper. This is before rap had even come to Britain's shores and I was on it and I went to this guy and said: "Look it's a mickey-take - let's write it". So I wrote the words and he got the Twist and Shout hook. There wasn't a single Englishman in the team at the time. They were all Scots, Irish, Welsh, a Dane, a Zimbabwean, an Australian. So the whole thing was about the dressing room craic. It was about McMahon and Aldridge and accents and how the other lads didn't talk like them:
 
"Ah eh mate, we're great me and you but the other lads don't talk like we do. No they don't talk like we do, do they though la, we'll have to learn them to talk proper."
 
The whole thing was about accents and how there were only two who had the proper Scouse accent. Now and again I get a royalty from Virgin Records and it's always a cheque for like £1.27 or 89p. I never bank it because it's not worth it. I should frame them though.
 
You've now had several careers. You must have a lot of drive and entrepreneurial spirit?
 
I had a lot of drive and entrepreneurial spirit but when you're a pioneer you usually end up with arrows in your back so in older age I don't have the same drive and enthusiasm, I just do what I want to do. I think that is why I love photography because I'm responsible for the end product. It doesn't have to go through a whole process or a bureaucracy or a filter. You don't have to please anyone except yourself. I've been lucky to have three or four different careers in things I wanted to do. Writing music wasn't a career – it was just a mickey-take. I co-wrote the New Order song World in Motion on which John Barnes did the rap. Then I had a game show called The Main Event which was primetime over here which did extremely well. Then there was the Predator boot.
 
But you almost didn't become a footballer at all. Didn't you have some problems with your leg?
 
It was worse than that. My mother actually signed the amputation order to have my leg removed because it was that bad. Osteomylitis is like polio – it rots the bone. You've got to have it off so that the infection doesn't spread. At the time there was a famous American surgeon who was touring Australia and by chance he intervened and said that there is a way of saving limbs. I was days away from losing my leg, it had all been signed off, but then this surgeon came to my rescue. Funnily enough I was there on the weekend at Newcastle hospital. It brought it all back. I was there for nearly eight months.
 
Do you think that made you more determined?
 
Absolutely. I lost eight months to a year when I was five years old and should have been running around. Did you ever see me play football? I'd run around like a lunatic and that is because I used to love doing that as a kid, not having been able to do that for so long when I was five. So I actually made a career out of running around and making a nuisance of myself. It's why I love surfing as well because the hospital is actually on the beach. So it was all of that looking out the window and seeing the surf. That's why I have such a love of surf. I could see all the kids running around and I was just like, 'let me out of here'.

www.liverpoolfc.tv

'There wasn't a single Englishman in the team at the time. They were all Scots, Irish, Welsh, a Dane, a Zimbabwean, an Australian. So the whole thing was about the dressing room craic. It was about McMahon and Aldridge and accents and how the other lads didn't talk like them'

Erm, Johno..McMahon?

Craig you wrote the best Fa cup final song of all time well done

Craig Johnston used to be one of my favourite players, came and opened a sweet shop in my home town of Frodsham when i was a teenager. Anyone who can score against the blue S**te in an FA cup final has got something going for them

If his leg would have been two inches longer, he would have scored twice!

He was Dirk before Dirk was.

F**k me the Anfield Rap that takes me back I must have been 9/10 years old when that was released 88 fa cup  if I remember correctly ? I used to jump around the lounge running it on an old record player, for you young ones we did not have cd's and mp3's back then it was 7" or 12" vinyl.

Liverpool F.C. is hard as hell

United, Tottenham, Arsenal

Watch my lips, and I will spell

'cause they don't just play, but they can rap as well

Liverpool F.C.

Liverpool F.C.

My idea was to build Liverpool into a bastion of invincibility...

Napoleon had that idea he'd have conquered the bloody world

Walk on... walk on... with hope... in your heart... and you'll never walk...

alone

Alright Aldo

Sound as a pound

I'm cushty la but there's nothing down

The rest of the lads ain't got it sussed

We'll have to learn 'em to talk like us

Well I'm rapping now, I'm rapping for fun

I'm your goalie, the number one

You can take the mick, don't call me a clown

Any more lip and you're going down

Alright Ace, we're great me and you

But the other lads don't talk like we do

No they don't talk like we do, do they do la

We'll have to learn 'em to talk propah

Walk on... walk on... with hope... in your heart... and you'll ne... ver walk...

alone

You two scousers are always yapping

I'm gonna show you some serious rapping

I come from Jamaica, my name is John Barnes

When I do my thing the crowd go bananas

How's he doing the Jamaica rap?

He's from just south of the Watford Gap

He gives us stick about the north/south divide

'cause they got the jobs

Yeah, but we got the side

Well I came to England looking for fame

So come on Kenny man, give us a game

'cause I'm sat on the bench paying my dues with the blues

I'm very big down under, but my wife disagrees

They've won the league, bigger stars than Dallas

They got more silver than Buckingham Palace

No-one knows quite what to expect

When the red machine's in full effect

Well Steve McMahon sure can rap

It's about time he had an England cap

So come on Bobby Robson, he's the man

'cause if anyone can, Macca can

Macca-can... Macca-can... Macca-can... Macca-can...

Liverpool FC - Anfield Rap (Full version)

^^^^ notice Chelsea did not get a mention ha ha you have not got any f**king history you f**king Chavs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN_DBCn492k#

^^^^^ was that Gow at 38 seconds in the stand  singing bless ?

                                           

Liverpool F.C. is hard as hell

'Hot' as hell.

'Hot' as hell.

Kuyt, Skrtel, Masch, Benayoun, Dossena aren't exactly hot mate. (the weather is scorching though )

'^^^^^ was that Gow at 38 seconds in the stand  singing bless ?'

Cheeky f**ker! I'm 30, not 50!

Oh, and I wasn't at that game.

soz mate

He's better looking than me anyway!

CJ was one of my heroes too. Always loved a nippy little winger, especially when I was a kid!

My wife loves him.... in  fact she named our son after him.