Johnny Williamson - the original false number 9

[Gary James]

Johnny Williamson died last week at the age of 92. Since then I’ve not really seen many tributes to Johnny, who has been a dedicated Blue attending Maine Road as a regular since the 1940s as well as being a striker. So, I’ve decided to put that right a little with this. Instead of writing the usual sort of tribute I’ve posted aninterview I did with Johnny about 18 years ago. His words tell his story much better than I can. For those wondering Johnny played the false number 9 back in the 1950s. Years before Pep was born.

Here’s the link:

Johnny Williamson

Last week I heard the news that the former Manchester City player Johnny Williamson had died at the age of 92 (this photo shows Johnny, far right, with his two great friends Ken Barnes and Don Revi…

gjfootballarchive.com

 

[JGL07]

I never realised that the False Nine system with City originated with Johnny Williamson in the reserve team. A year later it was deployed in the first team initially with Williamson. It later became known as the Revie Plan with Don in the number nine shirt as a deep lying midfielder.

City were sometimes referred to in the press as the ‘Deep Revie Boys’ at that time. They were named after the US Gospel Band, the Deep River Boys.

 

[Corky]

From virtual goal hanging all CFs became 'deep lying', the first big change was in the 19th century when Scottish teams realised the laws allowed passing rather than kick and rush.

 

[BlueMoonPodcast]

I missed the sad news of Williamson's death last week.

Back in 2009, when we first started doing the Podcast, me and Andy Dolan went to Platt Lane to speak to some of the former players at the time and Johnny Williamson was one of them. I've never put the interview in the archive because I was 21 and not very good at interviewing back then, so it's not a very good interview unfortunately.

But I've uploaded it to the Podcast's soundcloud in case anybody would like to listen:

 

[AliBobbyJ]

Johnny Williamson died last week at the age of 92. Since then I’ve not really seen many tributes to Johnny, who has been a dedicated Blue attending Maine Road as a regular since the 1940s as well as being a striker. So, I’ve decided to put that right a little with this. Instead of writing the usual sort of tribute I’ve posted aninterview I did with Johnny about 18 years ago. His words tell his story much better than I can. For those wondering Johnny played the false number 9 back in the 1950s. Years before Pep was born.

Here’s the link:

Johnny Williamson

Last week I heard the news that the former Manchester City player Johnny Williamson had died at the age of 92 (this photo shows Johnny, far right, with his two great friends Ken Barnes and Don Revi…

gjfootballarchive.com

That's a good read, thank you. Wonder what Pep would say about that way of playing. I think the whole 90 minutes of the 1956 Cup Final with the "Revie Plan" is on youtube so it'd be interesting to sit with Pep as he watched it and hear his comments. Am sure he'd like the first goal with that sweeping move from City's own goalmouth ending with Joe Hayes putting the ball in the net.