TITLE PRIDE HAS HIT US FOR SIX
ANTHONY JOHNSON says Radcliffe’s title win – and his sixth in management alongside Bernard Morley – has been a life-affirming experience.
Boro celebrated romping to the NPL Premier championship last weekend as the club booked a first ever adventure to Step 2 football.
Joint-managers Johnson and Morley enjoyed back-toback success at Ramsbottom United before taking Salford City, in full Class of 92 spotlight, from Step 4 to Step 1.
They guided Chester to the National League North play-offs before a short spell at Spennymoor Town followed by an 11-month sabbatical that ended last summer when Radcliffe called.
It brought the duo back to their roots – and Johnson says this title feels different.
“This is our sixth one – Saturday was the first time I’ve stood back, watched the celebrations, people’s emotions and what it meant to them,” Johnson tells
The NLP.
“People know what
I am about, I am loud in terms of what we’ve achieved and I make no apologies for that. But, as I’ve got a bit older, I’ve realised how much it matters to people outside of myself.
“I look at Bernard. He’s a born and bred Radcliffe lad. He lives
800 yards from the ground – literally his whole family live within a couple of miles of the ground. They all came to the game.
“I don’t think people understand the achievement of managing your hometown club to its highest ever position in the Pyramid, how profound that is.
“To take a small football club, double its average attendance within the space of a year, take it on its greatest ever FA Trophy run and also smash the NPL, at your hometown football club, I don’t see how it gets better than that.
“His son, who is 20 years old, his daughter, who plays for Manchester United, his wife, all on the pitch together – I could see the genuine emotion. You realise how big it is.”
Johnson’s family were at yesterday’s game too as they were presented with the trophy. It’s one they’ve been eyeing for some time with the swashbuckling side hitting top spot after their second game where they stayed from then on, bar one game in second in the middle of the season.
“Incredible, absolutely incredible the way we’ve done it,” Johnson says. “This isn’t me throwing out platitudes to sound good in the paper, but on the first day of pre-season we explained to the lads, me and Bern, why we came back into football and why we took the job.
Stress free
“That was to lose and shrug off that fear of failure. Just go out and enjoy it, play exciting football, attack, get people on the edge of their seats, get people wanting to come back.
“We’ve scored 100 league goals. We’ve won 28 out of 38 games. It’s been incredible. The amount of players involved in over 20 goals is phenomenal.
“It’s going to sound mad, but it’s probably as easy a year as I’ve had in football in terms of being stress free.
“After the second game of the season, we’ve been top of the league and not been moved. It takes some doing.
“We’ve got an experienced group of lads that, on the main, have been there and done it. You’ve see that maturity from us as a group and how we’ve dealt with the pressure.”
They’ve tied down the players they want for next season already as attention turns to how they approach the National League North.
“There’s no point setting targets because we don’t know who is in the league yet,” Johnson says. “What we do know is we’re going into a league where there are seven or eight full-time sides, or teams who train in the day.
“You’re coming up against a dozen ex-Football League clubs. But the club are going to enjoy it. We’ll be one of the smallest football clubs to have won promotion to that league. It’s a different kettle of fish.
Fulfilled
“So we will go and enjoy it but, what we will also do, is have a right go at it. I think that makes us dangerous because we have no fear.”
Johnson has previously said he may not have come back to management had it not been for a challenge like Radcliffe. He’s pleased he did.
“I said to the owner after the game during the celebrations, for the first time in my career I feel fulfilled,” Johnson says.
“I’ve been thinking what I meant about that. The best analogy I can think of is like when Ricky Hatton got beat off Pacquiao in his last fight. He said after, ‘I feel like I needed to do that’.
“That’s where I am at in my life. I am speaking for myself here, not Bern, coming out of that 11-month sabbatical of choosing not to come in, waiting for the right conversation to come up and then being proven right to make that decision to come back in.
“I’ve said before, I had to make peace I was an unemployed football manager. Not an unemployed National League North manager.
“Having done it the way we have done it, I feel fulfilled.”