In part two of our interview with Liverpool legend Craig Johnston, the trail-blazing Australian soccer great talks about Adelaide United, Liverpool’s future involvement in Australia, and the day he spotted his AFL doppelgänger.

Paul Marcuccitti: Craig, have you been to Adelaide before?

Craig Johnston: Yes, I’ve been to Adelaide before. I’ve been here in an official capacity. That was for the opening of (the redeveloped) Hindmarsh Stadium (in 1998) and it was Terry Venables’ last game as Australian coach (in Australia). It was against the Japanese national team.

Leon (Bignell) your sports minister reminded me, we played in the pro celebrity soccer game with George Negus and others. I remember it as clear as day. Negus was playing on the wing. It was a really special occasion with the new stadium and Venables’ last game making it interesting. I’ve been back with the family three or four times since then and I really like it here.

PM: So you were here for the redevelopment of Hindmarsh Stadium and now you’ve seen the redeveloped Adelaide Oval (Craig had just attended the Showdown). What are your impressions of that?

CJ: It’s a world-class facility in every sense of the word. The fact that it’s so close to town; it’s just stunningly beautiful and easy. And I think if you’re a professional athlete, be it the Bernabéu (Real Madrid’s home ground) or Anfield Road (Liverpool) or White Hart Lane (Tottenham Hotspur), those places are really difficult to get to, a long way out, and they’re a real pain. Just getting to this stadium was such a pleasant journey and it makes all the difference that it’s in town. It was a very special game with both teams honouring Phil Walsh. It was very emotional and very touching with both players running through the one banner. And Never Tear Us Apart means quite a lot to me because Mick Hutchence was a good friend of mine. I didn’t know it was Port Adelaide’s song and I had a little bit of emotion there myself. But it was very nice.

PM: Did the Liverpool players enjoy the game?

CJ: They didn’t know what to expect but they really enjoyed it. It’s a foreign sport for them. I had a quick word with James Milner and he loved it. As we know, he loves a bit of argy bargy!

PM: How much do you follow Aussie Rules? You grew up in New South Wales where it’s not as big but is it a sport you’ve kept an eye on?

CJ: You can’t be an Aussie kid and not have tried Aussie Rules. I did try it and I wasn’t big enough and I tried rugby league as well. But I come from Newcastle which is a real soccer town.

I’ll tell you a funny story. When I was playing for Liverpool, (Britain’s) Channel Four started to telecast Aussie Rules. Everybody, Dalglish, Rushie, used to say, “I saw your brother on television last night” and I thought, “what are these people talking about?” Eventually, when I watched it, Hawthorn was playing and there was a bloke called Johnny Platten. I looked at him and I said, “my goodness, yes, that’s my brother!” The way he moved, the way he jumped all over other players, harried people, got in people’s faces, won the ball and kicked the ball and his hair was everywhere. That was so freaky – he looked a lot like me so I knew what people were talking about then.

PM: (Laughing!) Did you ever meet John Platten?

CJ: I did, in Melbourne once. We both looked at each other and shook our heads and just laughed. Too freaky to be real! No relation, by the way.

PM: Just on Newcastle, I only went there for the first time earlier this year for the Asian Cup. I could see that, per population, it’s the most soccer friendly place in the country. What do you think of what’s been happening with its A-League club? They’ve been through a rough time.

CJ: They’ve been through a rough time for a long, long time. We’ve had one or two poor owners that have actually brought the club down and brought the city down with it in a lot of ways because a town’s self-esteem is invested in the sporting teams that represent them. The (NRL) Knights and the (A-League) Jets have had a torrid time, especially the Jets.

When I went back to Newcastle for the Asian Cup, it just reminded me of what a great, great town Newcastle is. The fact that it’s surrounded by Lake Macquarie and the Hunter Valley, the Tablelands, Mount Sugarloaf and stuff like that. It’s God’s country and it’s only 100 miles north of Sydney and 50 miles south of Port Stephens. If you’d come from Mars and landed at that stadium, which is a beautiful stadium, you’d say, “my goodness, this is a sporting utopia”. And it is. I’d love to get involved with Newcastle.

PM: What are your thoughts on Adelaide United? The last two years have been a little different with a coach from Barcelona and the influence of Guillermo Amor (former Barcelona star) in the set up. Have you been able to see much of what’s been happening at United in the last two years and the way they’re trying to play?

CJ: Yeah, I’ve seen a bit and I admire what they’re trying to do. I’ve had one or two conversations with the chairman, Greg Griffin. I spoke to him in Brisbane the other day. I think they’re on the right track. And this is a really good sporting town.

PM: Where else have you been in Adelaide on this trip?

CJ: We were at Glenelg this morning. We did some fishing with Rushie, Didi Hamann and Luis García. We were doing some stuff for Liverpool (Football Club) TV. Then we came back for the Aussie Rules game. It was just magnificent to get a red wine, real Aussie beef, sitting in the sun in that stadium watching two teams go at it. It doesn’t come better than that.

Craig Johnston fishing at Glenelg on the weekend. Photo: Nish Veer/Liverpool FC

PM: Where do you see Liverpool’s engagement with Australia going from here? Would you like Liverpool to have a presence here?

CJ: I’d love them to have an ongoing presence – whatever we can do to increase the links and the ties that have been there for a long time and make it a win for both sides. I’ve had some conversations (in Adelaide) about legacy ideas and how you could do something very special and I think the longer we’re here, the more we realise that this is a special town. Seriously, that little episode I described, sipping a local red watching the game particularly. I did a panorama – because I love my photography – of some of the Liverpool executives in the box and they agreed that this is a very special sporting town.

More and more, the older I get, the more I realise the power of sport in community to help young kids and inspire young kids to learn the lessons of sport. If you’re a good athlete and you show discipline, you can show discipline in your schoolwork and you become a team player. That helps build community and we have to integrate sport and the values it stands for into more school environments and more local environments and target at-risk kids. A lot of at-risk kids are the ones who don’t actually play sport. I really think that the Oval and Adelaide are on the right track and as good as I’ve seen anywhere and I’m really excited for you guys.

Professional athletes inspire kids and they don’t come better than Liverpool Football Club and you can see that by all the people that have come out and have been around the hotel just to catch a glimpse. That’s the benchmark to beat. We’ve got our A-League teams which are fantastic and kids aspire to that of course. But then they aspire further to Lallana, Milner, Jordan Henderson and players like that, with skills like that.

I keep saying, if we think we’re doing enough at grassroots with the touch and the feel of the ball at youth level, we’re absolutely not, and we have to aspire to what other countries are doing with their youth development. I keep trying to raise the bar because the only way we’re going to be a great footballing nation and have a better product is to have better touch; that’s my very simple philosophy. I don’t know why the penny hasn’t dropped before now. That’s what we have to do, get kids playing more football, more often, and the more the likes of Liverpool come out here and show the kids what good touch really is the more our kids will be excited to go out an play with a soccer ball.

In next Monday’s  final part of the interview, Craig opens up on the extraordinary ups and downs of his life after football and the state of the game in Australia.

Read part one here.

Interviewer Paul Marcuccitti is InDaily’s soccer columnist. He is a co-presenter of 5RTI’s Soccer on 531 program which can be heard from 11am on Saturdays.