JJ Johnson. What a player.
I leaned back in my chair, the System's data fading from my vision, replaced by a memory so vivid it felt like I could touch it.
I signed him in a week of finding him back in Railway Arms even though he was a hard bargain. JJ Johnson. The Gaffer's Player. That was what the lads at Moss Side Athletic called him, because his faith in me was absolute: total, unquestioning, almost unsettling in its completeness.
When Altrincham came in with an offer, he turned it down because I told him to trust the process. When a League Two club offered him fifty thousand pounds: life-changing money for a kid from Moss Side, he turned that down too, because I looked him in the eye and said,
"You're better than League Two. Be patient." He scored twice in the next match. He always scored when it mattered.
