Johnny Warren

Club career

After playing junior football for Botany Methodists and Earlwood Wanderers Warren joined Canterbury-Marrickville as a fifteen-year-old in 1959. Initially he played in the club's third grade team before being promoted to the first grade later in the year. In 1963 Warren transferred to St George Budapest. In a 12-year stint at St George Warren won three NSW State League grand finals, one premiership and two state cups. His final action as a player was to score a match-winning goal for St George in the 1974 NSW State League Grand Final. Immediately after scoring the goal he substituted himself off.

International career

Warren made his full international debut for Australia in November 1965 against Cambodia in Phnom Penh. He played 42 international matches, including Australia's first World Cup appearance in 1974. In 1967 Warren captained the national team for the first time in a match against New Zealand in Saigon. He went on to captain Australia in 24 internationals.

International goals

In 1974 Warren was a player-coach with St George Budapest. As well as helping found Canberra City, he served as the team's first coach in 1977 and 1978.

Warren grew up in the suburb of Botany in Sydney and had two elder brothers, Geoff and Ross. He attended Cleveland St. High School, Surry Hills, later becoming the school vice-captain.

In 1967 Warren married Marion Wilson. They divorced in 1969. He later married Maryana, originally from Uruguay. In 1997, his first wife Marion became a missing person. The case is the subject of the podcast The Lady Vanishes. After smoking heavily for most of his life since his adolescence, in 2003 Warren publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Several months later FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) president Sepp Blatter presented a frail Warren with the FIFA Centennial Order of Merit for his services to the game in Australia. His last public appearance was made during the launch of the rebranded Australian domestic football league, the A-League, which replaced the previous National Soccer League. Weeks before death, Warren was asked what he wanted his sporting legacy to be – his answer "I Told You So", a phrase which has become a catch-cry in Australian football and during the 2006 FIFA World Cup appeared on the scoreboard in the backdrop of the SBS World Cup studio. Warren died of respiratory complications related to his cancer on 6 November 2004, at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. He was awarded a full state funeral, the first to be held for a sportsman. Just over a year after his death, Australia qualified for the FIFA World Cup for the first time in 32 years, after defeating Uruguay in a penalty shootout. SBS analyst and former Socceroo Craig Foster was heard to shout "Johnny Warren!" on air in the immediate…