Supermercado
The straw that stirs the drink
52. Cameron Johnston
Games - 0
Goals - 0
Best and Fairest votes - Surely you jest?
I was three quarters of the way through writing this profile when much like Cameron's football career everything collapsed around me and I was cut down in the midst of what I wasn't doing particularly well.
Acres of fluff written for the purposes of the Big Footy annual couldn't hide the fact that we never really knew Cameron. He played a handful VFL games, including the early Geelong debacle, and racked up 31 possessions in his last home and away reserves game of the season yet somehow found himself in the can after just one year as a rookie.
Did anyone ever see him play? Sure I was there for that Geelong game but anybody who saw it will attest to the fact that the guys in Casey jumpers that morning were not in any way playing the game that you'd recognise as AFL football. At one point during the carnage Cale Morton even won a hard ball get from a centre bounce. It was not a normal day, and to think we thought it couldn't possible get any worse in the main event. In years to come Cameron, Dean Bailey and Addam Maric will sit together and all reminisce about how that day wound up with them losing their jobs while Cameron Schwab hovers outside the window flicking two fingers at them safe in the knowledge that it somehow saved his.
Why did he only get one year? We'll probably never know. You've either got to do something terrible or have awful luck to get the boot as a rookie after one but as he's already taking up residency in the where are they now file with other failed speculative rookie selections such as Ryan Ayres, Thomas Marshall and Joel Campbell it's almost certain that we'll never know the true story. Clubs don't tend to go into too much detail about why they axe rookies that you've never heard of.
What did we really know about him? Well according to his draft profile he labelled himself as being like Ryan O'Keefe, Andrew McLeod or Brett Ebert and wound up being mostly like the last one if somebody had dropped a block of concrete on his legs. Maybe. It's really all just speculation. Even a Google search doesn't turn up much from after his drafting - and Google News only tells us that there's somebody of the same name making a mint in New Zealand by hand crafting cufflinks. At least somebody's doing their bit for the name. Twitter is similiarly unenlightening as Cam turned down the opportunity to join his teammates in telling us about his love for the Xbox. There is, however, this guy, who as a Cronulla signwriter and ex-kickboxer could actually lend more to our cause in the future than his namesake.
Still, he lived the dream ever so briefly - and even if he has to resort to Google to prove to his kids that for one year he was almost an AFL footballer at least the photographic evidence is there.
So, we draw the curtain on the brief, and admittedly not at all memorable era of Johnston. Rest assured though one day you will be flicking through the Herald Sun at work on a Monday morning, trying desperately to avoid doing any actual work, and you'll come across an obscure Geelong district game involving two clubs you've never heard of and one of the best players will be a certain Mr. C Johnston - and that's more than you've ever seen Thomas Marshall do.
Games - 0
Goals - 0
Best and Fairest votes - Surely you jest?
I was three quarters of the way through writing this profile when much like Cameron's football career everything collapsed around me and I was cut down in the midst of what I wasn't doing particularly well.
Acres of fluff written for the purposes of the Big Footy annual couldn't hide the fact that we never really knew Cameron. He played a handful VFL games, including the early Geelong debacle, and racked up 31 possessions in his last home and away reserves game of the season yet somehow found himself in the can after just one year as a rookie.
Did anyone ever see him play? Sure I was there for that Geelong game but anybody who saw it will attest to the fact that the guys in Casey jumpers that morning were not in any way playing the game that you'd recognise as AFL football. At one point during the carnage Cale Morton even won a hard ball get from a centre bounce. It was not a normal day, and to think we thought it couldn't possible get any worse in the main event. In years to come Cameron, Dean Bailey and Addam Maric will sit together and all reminisce about how that day wound up with them losing their jobs while Cameron Schwab hovers outside the window flicking two fingers at them safe in the knowledge that it somehow saved his.
Why did he only get one year? We'll probably never know. You've either got to do something terrible or have awful luck to get the boot as a rookie after one but as he's already taking up residency in the where are they now file with other failed speculative rookie selections such as Ryan Ayres, Thomas Marshall and Joel Campbell it's almost certain that we'll never know the true story. Clubs don't tend to go into too much detail about why they axe rookies that you've never heard of.
What did we really know about him? Well according to his draft profile he labelled himself as being like Ryan O'Keefe, Andrew McLeod or Brett Ebert and wound up being mostly like the last one if somebody had dropped a block of concrete on his legs. Maybe. It's really all just speculation. Even a Google search doesn't turn up much from after his drafting - and Google News only tells us that there's somebody of the same name making a mint in New Zealand by hand crafting cufflinks. At least somebody's doing their bit for the name. Twitter is similiarly unenlightening as Cam turned down the opportunity to join his teammates in telling us about his love for the Xbox. There is, however, this guy, who as a Cronulla signwriter and ex-kickboxer could actually lend more to our cause in the future than his namesake.
Still, he lived the dream ever so briefly - and even if he has to resort to Google to prove to his kids that for one year he was almost an AFL footballer at least the photographic evidence is there.
So, we draw the curtain on the brief, and admittedly not at all memorable era of Johnston. Rest assured though one day you will be flicking through the Herald Sun at work on a Monday morning, trying desperately to avoid doing any actual work, and you'll come across an obscure Geelong district game involving two clubs you've never heard of and one of the best players will be a certain Mr. C Johnston - and that's more than you've ever seen Thomas Marshall do.
