Where Are They Now – Johnny Newman

Johnny Newman is the subject for this week’s chapter in Peverell Green’s Where Are They Now series.

JOHNNY NEWMAN – Born 13th December 1933 Hereford.

Johnny began his football career with his local club Hereford, playing for their reserve team as a fifteen year old and being selected to play for Wales in a Youth International.

He joined Birmingham in 1949 and signed his first professional contract with them in 1951.
Although he spent six seasons at St.Andrews he was never a regular first team player, only making sixty league appearances for them. Although he did play in the 1956 FA Cup Final, unfortunately for Johnny and former Argyle players also in the team, Gordon Astall and Alex Govan, although Alex would later re-join Argyle and play alongside Johnny in the same team again, Manchester City won 3-1.

In 1957 Johnny joined Leicester, although he managed 61 games scoring two goals in two and a half seasons and had been made club captain it must have come as a bit of a surprise when Argyle manager Jack Rowley`s offer was accepted and Johnny moved to the South West.
He made his Argyle debut on 16th January 1960, alongside other debutants George Kirby and Jimmy McAnearney in a 2-2 draw with Middlesbrough at Home Park with Jimmy McAnearney and Johnny Williams scoring.
He had to wait until March before he scored his first goal for the club; it came in a 3-1 home win over Ipswich with Johnny Williams and Alex Jackson scoring the first two goals.

Argyle’s first season back in Division 2 hadn’t been an easy one and they finished 19th, although Argyle fans they did have the pleasure of seeing their team beat both champions, Aston Villa (3-0) and runners up Cardiff (1-0) in the last two weeks of the season.

1960-61 saw Johnny only miss one game he also got another goal when he scored the first one in a 5-1 thrashing of Huddersfield, George Kirby (2), Bill Wright and Jimmy McAnearney also scoring, it was Argyle’s second successive 5-1 win after beating Pompey by the same score the previous Saturday.
In fact Argyle were involved in quite a few high scoring matches throughout the season with 29 goals coming in three games in December in the space of ten days. On the 17th December they were beaten 9-0 at Stoke, on Boxing Day they were beaten 6-4 at Charlton and the following day beat the same team by the same score with Wilf Carter scoring five of the six.
Johnny also scored in a League Cup fourth round replay at Home Park; he scored the second goal in a 5-3 defeat against Aston Villa with Wilf Carter and Johnny Williams also on the scoresheet.

Johnny continued his goal a season average the following season when he scored the first in a 2-1 home win over Leyton Orient with Jimmy McAnearney also scoring.
In 1962-63 Johnny played in all 42 league games and both cup matches, scoring two goals. The first came in a 2-2 draw at home to Rotherham, he scored the first and Peter McParland the second.
His other goal came on the last day of the season in a 2-1 defeat at Ninian Park Cardiff.
After only failing to score in six league games the previous season 1963-64 saw Argyle struggle for goals all season, failing to score in fourteen games, exactly a third of their matches. It almost cost Argyle dearly at the season end when they escaped relegation on goal difference with Grimsby scoring two more goals than Argyle but luckily they conceded eight more.

Fortunately 1964-65 was far better for the team; they improved their league position by five places and reached the semi-final of the League Cup with Johnny scoring as many goals as he had in the previous five seasons.
His first came in a 2-1 away defeat at Crystal Palace. He then scored the only goal of the game when they beat Middlesbrough 1-0 at Home Park.
In March he scored the Argyle goal in a 1-1 draw at home to Derby. His final league goal of the season, and as it turned out his final goal for the club came in an easy 5-2 win at home to Northampton, Johnny scored the final goal after Cliff Jackson (2), Richard Reynolds and Johnny Williams had also scored.
Johnny’s most important goal that season came in a League Cup fifth round match at Home Park, 21,968 turned up to watch a Johnny score the winning goal in a 1-0 win to set up a semi-final game with Leicester.
After a narrow 3-2 defeat at Filbert Street Argyle lost the second leg 1-0 to miss out on a chance to go to Wembley.

The highlight of the 1966-67 season didn’t come from an Argyle game, although it did take place at Home Park. England had won the World Cup in the summer and the first match most of the winning team played in together was when a Football League XI played the Irish League XI on 21st September 1966.
Johnny Newman had been selected as part of the squad, although he ended up as a non-playing substitute. A massive crowd of 35,458 crammed into the ground.
I can remember going to the ground straight from school but was still a long way back in one of the queues for the 7:30 kick off.
When the gates opened I managed to get behind the Devonport End goal right at the front.
Before the match started the team did a lap of honour around the pitch carrying the World Cup. Security was non-existent and even as a youngster I could have reached out and touched the cup if I had wanted to.
The game was over by half time with the Football League scoring six, to keep the fans in the Barn Park end happy they scored six in the second half as well. Just to have been part of the team must have been one of Johnny`s best moments in football.

After only fourteen games of the 1967-68 season Argyle manager Derek Ufton decided the 33 year old no longer had a place in the Argyle team and after 328 appearances and eleven goals he was transferred to Exeter in a joint transfer with Alan Banks for £8,000 for the two of them.

Johnny continued for two seasons solely as a player before becoming player/manager in 1969.
In 1972 he finally hung up his boots after playing 92 games and scoring 1 goal for Exeter to take up the manager`s job full time. He remained in the job for another four seasons before joining Grimsby in 1976.

He had success at Grimsby, getting them promoted to the Third Division before moving on to Derby County. Unfortunately he wasn’t as successful there and he only stayed for eleven months.
Johnny returned to his home town to manage Hereford in March 1983 staying there until October 1987.
He then moved on to assist former Argyle player and manager Bobby Saxton, at York. He then took a similar position at Notts County with John Barnwell.
He then joined another former Argyle player George Foster as a Youth Development manager at Mansfield.