Ryan Johnson

Stevenage

Johnson began his career in the youth academy at West Bromwich Albion, where he spent seven years as a schoolboy. He was offered a scholarship in the summer of 2013 but opted to join Stevenage instead, believing it would be a better pathway to first-team football. Upon joining Stevenage, he trained regularly with the senior squad while beginning a two-year scholarship. Johnson made his professional debut on the final day of the 2013–14 season, appearing as a substitute in a 2–0 away defeat to Brentford on 3 May 2014. Aged 17 years and 215 days, he became Stevenage's youngest Football League debutant at the time, a record later surpassed by Liam Smyth in October 2018.

Loan spells

All four of Johnson's appearances for Stevenage during the 2014–15 season came in the opening two months of the season. This included receiving a red card for two bookable offences within the space of six minutes in a 2–1 away defeat to Bury on 16 September 2014. A month later, he joined Conference South club Boreham Wood on a one-month loan on 24 October 2014 in order to gain first-team experience. He made one appearance during the brief spell, as a 90th-minute substitute in a 2–1 victory over Maidenhead United on 10 November 2014. He returned to Stevenage later that month and played for the club's development squad for the remainder of the season. The 2015–16 season followed a similar course with Johnson appearing regularly in the match-day squad, but often as an…

Born in England, Johnson is of Northern Irish descent through his mother. Johnson received his first call-up to represent Northern Ireland at under-21 level in September 2015, playing the full match in a 2–1 defeat to Scotland in a 2017 UEFA European under-21 Championship qualifier. He scored his first international goal three days later in a 1–1 away draw with Iceland in Reykjavík. Johnson made four appearances, scoring once, as Northern Ireland finished bottom of the qualification group. He remained a regular at centre-back during the subsequent 2019 UEFA European under-21 Championship qualifying campaign. Johnson received his first call-up to the Northern Ireland senior team on 31 August 2025 for the World Cup qualifiers against Luxembourg and Germany.

Johnson is left-footed and has been deployed at left-back and centre-back throughout his career, although prefers to play as a centre-back. During his time at Hartlepool, he was described as a "ball-playing defender" and was utilised as the left-sided centre-back in a three-man central defence during the 2020–21 season.

As of match played 2 May 2026