It’s often said that you wait ages for a bus and then three come along at once. When it comes to goals by Michael Johnston, the tradition is that you wait ages for one and keep on waiting. However, this season has been different.

First of all, our captain scored against Llanystumdwy in a 13-0 home victory in the Tarian Goffa Bob Owen Memorial Shield on 16 November. Just over a month later on 21 December, he scored again in a 6-0 win at home to the same opponents in the Gwynedd League with an effort that won our December Goal of the Month competition. Within a fortnight, he scored our first goal of a new year and a new decade in a 4-0 league success away to Glantraeth.

Johno’s goals this season have been said by some to be like the moon landings; despite the existence of video footage, not everyone believes that they actually happened. There has been a degree of disbelief on social media, and our goal-scoring captain has explained that his former Brickfield Rangers colleagues Terry McCormick and Ben Collins have been particularly vocal in expressing their disbelief.

In order to examine Johno’s goalscoring exploits, we enlisted the help of a private detective, several historians, and a few members of the Johnston clan. And the findings are actually quite surprising. Despite his reputation, Michael has actually scored more goals than you might think. Mike Smith of the Citizens Choice website even managed to uncover some goals that Johno himself appeared to have forgotten about.

Prior to November 2019, the last time Johno had been thought to have found the net was when he was asked to help assemble a set of goalposts at a training session several years ago. However, he actually scored the final goal for Brickfield Rangers in a 7-2 win against Rhostyllen in the second qualifying round of the Welsh Cup on 9 September 2017. Perhaps even more remarkably, it came from a spot-kick after his team entrusted him with penalty duties.

During his time with Bangor City, Michael Johnston scored in a 3-3 draw away to Caersws in the League Cup in September 2008 and in a memorable 3-2 win away to the same opponents in November 2007. In between these two games, he has also been credited with a goal during a 6-0 victory against Guilsfield in a Welsh Cup quarter-final in March 2008. However, some have argued that his goal-bound effort in this last match should go down as an own goal as a defender attempting a clearance got the last touch.

Whilst expressing delight at having scored several recent goals, Johno has also downplayed some of his exploits. He has said of his goal in the Welsh Cup win away to Caersws, “it was a header that I totally miscued into the ground that bounced up and stuck in the stanchion”.

However, Pat Johnston has described seeing his younger brother win our December goal of the month as a “proud big brother moment”. Pat has also told of how Michael struggled to score goals during kickabouts in the garden or the local park as a kid, but acknowledged that “it was hard for him as I always put him in goal”. When asked whether his younger sibling showed the potential to develop into a shot-stopper rather than a central defender, Pat said that Michael was “as good as a goalkeeper as he is as a striker”.

Nevertheless, Pat Johnston acknowledged that his younger brother deserves credit for his perseverance as they would often “be in the park for hours, having shots, tackles, heading practice and one-on-ones for ages at a time”.

Johno has pointed out that he was “predominantly a defender” as a youngster but had “little stints in midfield and the odd flurry up top every now and again”. In fact, he remembers that he scored “quite a few” for his school team at under-16 level but admitted that this is “just a distant memory now”. Nevertheless, he recalls contributing two late goals as his side came from 1-0 down to win a cup final. He has explained that one of these was a from a free-kick and the other came via a shot from outside the box.

Despite his recent goalscoring achievements, and seeing teammate Les Davies finish several Bangor 1876 matches in the centre of defence, Johno does not harbour any ambitions of converting into an attacker. In fact, our team captain says “the thought of me playing up front could be nothing short of disastrous”. He is happy to leave that role to his teammates, who he says have been “an absolute pleasure to lead” this season.