Great goalscorers: CAMPBELL, JOHNNY (ASTON VILLA) (and Celtic)

 Top scorer in Division One in 1895/96 as his goals led Villa to their second title in 3 seasons 

Great goalscorers:  CAMPBELL, JOHNNY (ASTON VILLA) (and Celtic)

Campbell was top scorer in the First Division in 1895/96. He scored 26 – 17 at home and 9 away - of Villa’s 78 goals as the Birmingham club captured the title for the second time. Steve Bloomer of Derby County finished in second place with 22 goals in 25 matches as the Rams finished in second place in the table.

Johnny Campbell was a wonderfully gifted and clever inside or centre-forward. He was brave, aggressive when required, possessed plenty of tricks, and above all had an instinctive knack of scoring goals.

Not in anyway a battering ram – as a lot of players in his position tended to be described in Victorian Days – he was a deft, clever forward who used his intelligence to manoeuvre himself into scoring positions. He had exceptional balance, close control and dribbling skills, and above all, he was totally committed to playing football, often dragging himself off his sick bed to turn out for his club. In fact, in one game he had both knees heavily strapped up, while also suffering from a migraine.

He had done remarkably well north of the border before moving south to join Aston Villa in the summer of 1895. And as soon as he set foot inside the Birmingham club’s ground at Perry Barr, everyone knew they had signed someone special!

Campbell had a superb first season with Villa, helping them lift the First Division title for the second time in three years. Not only did the likeable Scot top the scoring charts, he was also the First Division’s leading marksman, with a total of twenty-six goals.

After a relatively quiet first game for Villa, a 1-0 home win over neighbours West Bromwich Albion, he burst into life with a four-timer in his second game as Villa thumped Small Heath 7-3 in the ‘second city’ derby. He scored with two flashing right-foot drives, a glancing header from Charlie Athersmith’s curling centre and a tap in after Steve Smith’s shot had cannoned off a defender. Campbell also helped set up two goals for Devey.

A fortnight later, Campbell scored his fifth goal of the season against Derby County (won 4-1), followed up with smart efforts in away draws at Blackburn Rovers and West Brom, and in successive home wins over Everton and Sunderland before hitting the net again when Villa completed the double over Small Heath with a 4-1 win at Muntz Street.

Absent for four games during October and November, he was back in action in early December with two goals in a 4-3 defeat at Preston. He then clinched a 2-0 home win over Bolton Wanderers with a stinging right-footer and bagged braces in victories over Bury (2-0) and Stoke (2-1). One of his strikes against the Potters was a brilliant individual effort.

Surprisingly, Campbell was goalless in his next four games – and it wasn’t for the want of trying, as he struck the woodwork in a 1-0 home win over Preston and the 3-1 victory at Sheffield Wednesday.

On 22 February, with the Championship race hotting up, in-form Villa defeated Stoke 5-2 in their return game, Campbell bagging his second hat-trick for the club. It had been a closely-fought encounter for an hour, but then Campbell got going, two of his goals coming after some smart inter-play involving Bob Chatt and Devey.

A draw at Bolton and a home win over Sheffield Wednesday, when Campbell scored another ‘fine goal’, was followed by a 5-3 defeat by Bury, but by winning their last two matches at Nottingham Forest (2-0), with Campbell on target again, and at home to Wolves (4-1), when Campbell scored twice, including a thumping effort from outside the area, the Championship trophy came back to Villa.

After helping Aston Villa emulate Preston North End’s feat of completing the League and FA Cup double, Campbell decided to return to his first love, Celtic, who paid £70 for his signature. In 1898 he gained a Scottish League Championship winner’s medal, and two years later collected his second.

After scoring a total of 113 goals in 215 senior appearances during his two spells with Celtic, he moved to Third Lanark in August 1903, and in his first season helped the now-defunct Scottish club win the title.

Campbell eventually retired from competitive football in April 1906 at the age of thirty-four. He had scored a grand total of 141 goals in 264 club games and 4 in 12 internationals. He also represented the Scottish League on four occasions and played three times for a Glasgow Select XI, scoring another three goals.

No relation to the J. M. Campbell who played for Sunderland and Newcastle United between 1890 and 1898, but a cousin of fellow Scottish international John Campbell, who starred for Partick Thistle, Blackburn Rovers, Rangers, West Ham United and Hibernian in the late 1890s/early 1900s,

 J. J. Campbell was born in Govan, Glasgow on 12 September 1871. A prolific goalscorer in local football with St Alexandra’s and Glasgow Benburb, he signed professionally for Celtic in May 1890, and in his first full season scored over fifty goals at various levels, including twelve in one reserve team game. At the end of the 1891/92 season, he scored twice in Celtic’s 5-1 Scottish Cup final victory over Queen’s Park.

Campbell gained the first of his 12 Scotland caps in a 5-1 win over Ireland in March 1893, and the following month was in the team beaten 5-2 by England. A year after helping the Bhoys win back-to-back Scottish League Championships, Campbell surprised people by leaving Glasgow in May 1895, joining a fine Villa side where he teamed up with some brilliant forwards, including John Devey, Dennis Hodgetts, Athersmith and Stephen Smith.

He remained in Scotland for the rest of his life, passing away in Glasgow on 2 December 1947.