Robert Johnston (2 June 1909 – 27 September 1968) was a Scottish

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played for

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

as a

central defender In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

. Johnston made his debut for Sunderland on 25 April 1931 against

West Ham United West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium, hav ...

in a 3–0 win at Upton Park. He joined Sunderland aged just 20 from the Scottish Junior leagues and found it hard to break into the team, though he played more regularly after others left. Johnston played for Sunderland from 1929 until 1939 making 146 league appearances, without scoring a goal. While on a squad tour to Spain in the summer of 1935, Johnston suffered from an attack of malaria; he recovered to play a part in the club's

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

title-winning campaign in the 1935–36 season, as well as the

1936 FA Charity Shield The 1936 FA Charity Shield was the 23rd FA Charity Shield, a football match between the winners of the previous season's First Division and FA Cup competitions. The match was contested by FA Cup winners Arsenal and league champions Sunderland, an ...

and the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

victory at

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

1937 Events January * January 1 – Anastasio Somoza García becomes President of Nicaragua. * January 5 – Water levels begin to rise in the Ohio River in the United States, leading to the Ohio River flood of 1937, which continues into Fe ...

. Although his playing career was curtailed by the Second World War, he worked as a coach for Sunderland between 1951 and 1957. Johnston represented

once, in a 5–0 victory against

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

in 1937.

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* 1909 births Scottish men's footballers Sunderland A.F.C. players 1968 deaths Scotland men's international footballers Men's association football central defenders English Football League players Scottish Junior Football Association players Sunderland A.F.C. non-playing staff Footballers from Falkirk Alva Albion Rangers F.C. players {{Scotland-footy-defender-1900s-stub