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Thomas "Tommy" Johnson (born 15 January 1971 in Gateshead, England) is a retired football player.
Johnson started his career with Notts County in the summer of 1987, joining them as an apprentice on leaving school. He was a first-team regular by the end of the decade, and his prolific goalscoring saw County reach the First Division in 1991 after two successive promotion playoff triumphs. However, County lasted just one season in the top flight and missed out on a place in the new Premier League that came into force for the 1992-93. Before the end of that bleak campaign, Johnson had left Meadow Lane and moved down a division to ambitious Derby County, who narrowly missed out on a Premier League place in the playoffs. He helped them reached the new Division One playoff final in 1993-94, but Derby lost 2-1 to local rivals Leicester City and soon after that, Johnson finally made his Premier League debut with a move to Aston Villa.
On his arrival at Villa Park, Johnson displaced Dalian Atkinson as strike-partner to Dean Saunders, and his future at the highest level looked promising as he scored the goals to help Villa stay in the Premier League. The close season saw Atkinson and Saunders leave the club, and manager Brian Little brought in Serbian striker Savo Milosevic. However, the greatest threat to Johnson's first-team chances was Dwight Yorke, who had been at the club since 1989 but until then had been favoured as a winger rather than a striker. As Yorke established himself as a centre-forward, Johnson's first-team chances became limited, although he did collect a League Cup winner's medal on 24 March 1996 as Villa triumphed 3-0 over Leeds United at Wembley.
In 1997, he joined Scottish giants Celtic for £2.3m. Despite seeing his career at the Hoops cut short by injury, he enjoyed some success at Celtic Park, including scoring the goal that won the 2000-01. Scottish Premier League title (as the Bhoys won the Scottish domestic treble), and scoring in the 2000 Scottish League Cup final win over Aberdeen. He had also collected a title medal in 1997-98. At Celtic, he played under managers Wim Jansen, Jozef Venglos, John Barnes, Kenny Dalglish and finally Martin O'Neill.
During his time at Celtic, Johnson was briefly loaned out to Everton 1999.
Next stop was Sheffield Wednesday, before joining Kilmarnock and then Gillingham in December 2001. After two seasons at Gillingham, Johnson joined Sheffield United. He only made one appearance at the club before moving on to Scunthorpe United, where he suffered an injury-plagued career, causing some supporters to question if he was really a professional footballer and not just someone in it for the money.
During his time at Scunthorpe United he was loaned out to Tamworth, finally joining them on a permanent contract and staying there until the summer of 2006.
On September 10, 2006 he signed for Midland Football Alliance club Rocester.[1]
Johnson temporarily re-joined Notts County as part of the coaching staff under the management of Ian McParland on 1 November 2007.[2]
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| Persondata |
| NAME |
Johnson, Tommy |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES |
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| SHORT DESCRIPTION |
Professional soccer player |
| DATE OF BIRTH |
15 January 1971 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH |
England |
| DATE OF DEATH |
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| PLACE OF DEATH |
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