Martin Johnson

Martin Johnson (23 June 1949 – 13 March 2021) was an English sports journalist who worked as a cricket correspondent of The Independent, sports feature writer at the Daily Telegraph and as a writer for The Sunday Times. Among the sports he covered in addition to cricket were rugby union, boxing, rowing, golf, show jumping and the Olympics.

He wrote of David Gower, the English batsman, that he was "so laid back, he’s almost horizontal"; on Shane Warne’s delivery to dismiss Mike Gatting in 1993: "How anyone can spin a ball the width of Gatting boggles the mind"; on the bowler Angus Fraser running in "like a man who has got his braces caught on the sightcreen" (sic); on Merv Hughes, the Australian bowler, "He swings it both ways through the air (and that’s just his stomach) … his coiffeur appears to have been entrusted to an inebriated sheep shearer somewhere in the outback."

Gower said of him: "Martin was a writer of great skill, and he wrote primarily to entertain himself. He was also fiercely independent and wasn’t afraid to put the boot in." His Telegraph obituarist finished his piece with: "Few men in our business have brought so much joy to so many."

He was a keen golfer. He died on 13 March 2021 at the age of 71 after a long illness.