Mark 'MJ' Johnson (born 23 May 1978) is a former professional

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

er who played for the

Essendon Football Club The Essendon Football Club, nicknamed the Bombers, is a professional Australian rules football club. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the game's premier competition. The club was formed by the McCracken family in their A ...

and

Fremantle Football Club The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers, is a professional Australian rules football club competing in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The team was founded in 1994 to represent the port city of ...

in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL).

Early life

Johnson is commonly known as "Mr. Sunbury", referring to the

body building Bodybuilding is the use of progressive resistance exercise to control and develop one's muscles (muscle building) by muscle hypertrophy for aesthetic purposes. It is distinct from similar activities such as powerlifting because it focuses o ...

award he won as a teenager in his home town of

Sunbury, Victoria Sunbury () is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City of Hume Local government areas of Victoria, local ...

. Mark commenced his junior football with Diggers Rest Football Club, before moving to Sunbury Lions. He was drafted to Essendon as a rookie after playing underage with the Calder Cannons in the TAC Cup competition.

AFL career

Johnson was elevated from the Essendon rookie list in 1998, playing his first game in 1999. He was part of the 2000 premiership side, and won the W.S. Crichton Medal in 2002. Known for his toughness, Johnson was part of the midfield duo known as the "Johnson Boys" at Essendon, the other member being Jason Johnson. The two are not related, however Mark did have a brother who played in the AFL for

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...

, David Johnson. He was a courageous player and sometimes his height and strength were underestimated by opposition players. He played every match in 2006 and was one of just three Essendon players to do so; the others being

Brent Stanton Brent Stanton (born 1 May 1986) is a retired professional Australian rules footballer who played his entire career for the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Early life Stanton attended Banyule Primary School and V ...

and Scott Lucas. On 15 October 2007, Essendon announced that 29-year-old Johnson was to be delisted by the club, giving him the option of nominating for the national draft. The decision to delist Johnson was unpopular to many Essendon fans who enjoyed Mark's 'hard at it' attitude to his footy. In November 2007, Mark was training with rival club, the

Kangaroos Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

. In the

2007 AFL Draft The 2007 Australian Football League draft consisted of four opportunities for player acquisitions during the 2007/08 Australian Football League off-season. These were trade week, the national draft, which was held on 24 November 2007, the pre-se ...

however, he was drafted to West Australian club,

Fremantle Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australian vernacular diminutive for ...

, where he was reunited with former Essendon teammates

Dean Solomon Dean Solomon (born 9 January 1980) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Essendon Football Club and the Fremantle Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Solomon served as caretaker senior coach ...

, who was traded by Essendon in 2006, and

Kepler Bradley Kepler Bradley (born 13 November 1985) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Essendon and Fremantle Football Clubs in the Australian Football League. Early career Bradley played junior football with the Kingsley Junior ...

, also delisted by the Dons at the end of the 2007 season. Johnson brought up his 200th AFL game in round 14, coincidentally against his former side, Essendon, at Domain Stadium. His old club triumphed by four points. He later sustained a career ending shoulder injury and played his last game in round 22 against Collingwood, which Fremantle won by 24 points. He later sought compensation from the Dockers for his injury.

Playing statistics

:Mark Johnson's player profile at AFL Tables
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1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

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2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 1 , , 24 , , 5 , , 4 , , 269 , , 124 , , 393 , , 102 , , 39 , , 0.2 , , 0.2 , , 11.2 , , 5.2 , , 16.4 , , 4.3 , , 1.6 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 1 , , 23 , , 10 , , 2 , , 250 , , 89 , , 339 , , 84 , , 48 , , 0.4 , , 0.1 , , 10.9 , , 3.9 , , 14.7 , , 3.7 , , 2.1 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 1 , , 24 , , 5 , , 2 , , 247 , , 142 , , 389 , , 109 , , 78 , , 0.2 , , 0.1 , , 10.3 , , 5.9 , , 16.2 , , 4.5 , , 3.3 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 1 , , 24 , , 8 , , 4 , , 257 , , 165 , , 422 , , 107 , , 98 , , 0.3 , , 0.2 , , 10.7 , , 6.9 , , 17.6 , , 4.5 , , 4.1 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 1 , , 20 , , 17 , , 11 , , 162 , , 117 , , 279 , , 54 , , 57 , , 0.9 , , 0.6 , , 8.1 , , 5.9 , , 14.0 , , 2.7 , , 2.9 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 1 , , 22 , , 29 , , 12 , , 265 , , 133 , , 398 , , 106 , , 84 , , 1.3 , , 0.5 , , 12.0 , , 6.0 , , 18.1 , , 4.8 , , 3.8 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 1 , , 22 , , 9 , , 4 , , 212 , , 146 , , 358 , , 99 , , 64 , , 0.4 , , 0.2 , , 9.6 , , 6.6 , , 16.3 , , 4.5 , , 2.9 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 1 , , 20 , , 7 , , 3 , , 180 , , 131 , , 311 , , 98 , , 49 , , 0.4 , , 0.2 , , 9.0 , , 6.6 , , 15.6 , , 4.9 , , 2.5 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 17 , , 14 , , 8 , , 3 , , 88 , , 60 , , 148 , , 35 , , 31 , , 0.6 , , 0.2 , , 6.3 , , 4.3 , , 10.6 , , 2.5 , , 2.2 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 208 ! 100 ! 46 ! 2061 ! 1186 ! 3247 ! 841 ! 568 ! 0.5 ! 0.2 ! 9.9 ! 5.7 ! 15.6 ! 4.0 ! 2.7

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Mark Essendon Football Club players Essendon Football Club Premiership players Fremantle Football Club players Crichton Medal winners 1978 births Living people Australian rules footballers from Melbourne Calder Cannons players Perth Football Club players One-time VFL/AFL Premiership players People from Sunbury, Victoria