Johnny Summers (10 September 1927 – 2 June 1962) was a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

striker who scored 104 goals for

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in C ...

. Summers engineered one of the most remarkable comebacks in football history; Charlton were 5-1 down against Huddersfield with half an hour to go with only 10 men; they won 7-6 in the Second Division at The Valley, 21 December 1957. Johnny scored five goals, set up two and scored a six-minute hat-trick. Summers later revealed that he changed his boots at half-time after his old pair had started falling apart. Johnny Summers played for

Norwich City Norwich City Football Club (also known as The Canaries or The Yellows) is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. The club competes in the EFL Championship following their relegation from the Premier League in the 20 ...

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...

and

Millwall Millwall is a district on the western and southern side of the Isle of Dogs, in east London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the immediate south of Canary Wharf and Limehouse, north of Greenwich and Deptford, east ...

, prior to his Charlton career. He made his debut for Millwall in 1954 in the opening match of the 1954–55 season, against

Brighton and Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (), commonly referred to simply as Brighton, is an English professional football club based in the city of Brighton and Hove. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league ...

, in front of a 25,000 plus crowd at The Den. In a 2–0 win, he disappointed the fickle crowd and after a few weeks disappeared into the Reserves, surfacing again the following January, as a left winger. From that time, he never looked back, and was one of the most fearsome and lethal forwards seen at The Den in years. His transfer to Charlton Athletic, for their last season in the old First Division, was regretted by Millwall fans, but seen as inevitable. He died at the age of just 34 in 1962 of cancer.

References

External links

The 10 greatest comebacks of all time
* 1927 births 1962 deaths Norwich City F.C. players Fulham F.C. players Millwall F.C. players Charlton Athletic F.C. players English men's footballers English Football League players Men's association football forwards Deaths from cancer in England Footballers from Hammersmith {{England-footy-forward-1920s-stub