Ray Johnston and Dick Johnson

[Max Turner]

Newtown lock Ray Johnston was born on 16 May 1915 in Petersham, NSW. He died on 1 September 1939. His full name was Raymond Keith Johnston.

The rep games on Ray's profile for 1938-1942, which were played at fullback, are listed in newspapers as R. Johnson, of South Sydney and later Cessnock. I believe this would be Dick Johnson, whose details are available from westsarchives.com.au. The profile R Johnson for Cessnock 1941 would probably also be Dick. (I'm guessing there was an assumption that 'Dick' was short for Richard, but this was not the case)

City Seconds vs Country Seconds (4 Jun 1938)	R Johnson (South Sydney)
Sydney Firsts vs New Zealand (6 Jul 1938)	R Johnson (SS)
City Firsts vs Country Firsts (3 Jun 1939)	R Johnson (SS)
Country Firsts vs City Firsts (7 Jun 1941)	R Johnson (Cessnock)
Country Firsts vs City Firsts (4 Jul 1942)	R Johnson (Cessnock)
Rest of NSW vs Fighting Services (26 Sep 1942)	R Johnson (Cessnock)

[GregRLP]

Yes Max I agree back when these games were done I was updating a spreadsheet and Andrew was inputting into the database my spreadsheets list R Johnson and Andrew has assumed this to be Ray Johnston by the look of it. I will update RLP to reflect these games as Dick Johnson.

Alternatively I suspect that the games listed against Dick Johnson for Newtown in 1934 are in fact Ray Johnston despite all media referring to him as R Johnson in 1934.

[GregRLP]

I have updated both Ray Johnston & Dick Johnson to reflect the above I have also added comments on each to explain the confusion between the 2 players.