Match Day
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WAYNE (DOMINATOR) JOHNSTON
Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - Posted by Robert Morrison
A LEGEND CARLTON BLUE - JOINS THE HASTINGS BLUES
An extract from www.blueseum.org
Playing Career : 1979 - 1990
Debut : Round 3, 1979 vs Essendon, aged 21 years 101 days
877th Carlton Player
Games : 209
Goals : 283
Guernsey No. 7
Last Game : Round 18, 1990 vs Footscray, aged 32 years 229 days
Height : 180 cm (5'11")
Weight : 79 kgs (12.6)
DOB : 19 December, 1957
Premiership Player: 1979, 1981, 1982, 1987
Best and Fairest: 1983, 1986 (Equal)
Night Premiership (Captain): 1983
Leading Goalkicker : 1980 (51)
Captain : 1984 - 1985
All Australian 1987
Carlton Team of the Century
Carlton Hall of Fame
Carlton Legend
A brilliant, hard-running, aggressive mid-fielder in four Carlton Premiership teams, Wayne Johnston was a player ahead of his time. Years before athletic endurance and absolute intensity became prime requirements of a league footballer, Johnston; ‘The Dominator’ carved his name with capitals into the history of the Carlton Football Club. An outstanding big-occasion player, he was absolutely ruthless in his pursuit of victory.
Originally from Wandin North in Melbourne’s outer-eastern suburbs, Johnston’s path to glory at Princes Park was not a smooth one. Recruited by VFA club Prahran as an 18 year-old in 1975, ‘Johnno’ was a star half-forward for the Two Blues from his first game, and this led to an invitation to join pre-season training at Carlton in 1978. But by his own admission, his first experience of the physical demands of league football caught him out. Rejected as lacking the will to play at elite level, he was sent back to Prahran, somewhat humiliated and with a burning desire to prove his doubters wrong.
Sure enough, Johnston’s ball-winning ability and raking left foot spurred Prahran into the finals again. He was outstanding when the Two Blues accounted for Preston in a classic ’87 VFA Grand Final, and, for the third year in a row, finished among the top three in Prahran’s Best and Fairest award. In his 68 games at Toorak Park, he steered through 173 goals – an effort that three decades later would win him a place in Prahran’s Team of the Century. More importantly, his confidence and single-minded determination was vindicated when representatives from the Melbourne Football Club came calling with an invitation to join the Demons.
Melbourne was told to go fly a kite, and Wayne Johnston became a Blue.
Often described as Carlton’s greatest-ever finals performer, Wayne Johnston collected even more accolades in the years after his retirement. Following on from his four Premierships as a player, two Best and Fairest awards and two seasons as captain of the Blues, he represented Victoria three times in interstate matches, was an All Australian in 1987.
He was elected to the Carlton Hall of Fame in 1991. At the end of the decade, he was selected on a half-forward flank in Carlton’s Team of the Century, and is one of an elite group of just ten great players so far named as Legends of the Carlton Football Club. Perhaps his career was summed up best by David Parkin, who once said of the Dominator;
‘He had an enormous capacity to pump himself up and get the best out of himself when it mattered. He had a fire in his belly – a passion for the contest like few other players’
Career Highlights
1979 8th Best & Fairest
1980 8th Best & Fairest
1982 4th Best & Fairest on countback
1983 Robert Reynolds Memorial Trophy -Best & Fairest Award
1984 5th Best & Fairest
1986 Equal Robert Reynolds Memorial Trophy -Best & Fairest Award
1987 2nd Best & Fairest
1987 Best Clubman Award
1988 3rd Best & Fairest
We all welcome Wayne Johnston to Hastings, welcome to a true BLUE.