98 League goals. Part of the team that played Matt Busby's Manchester United in 1958. Scorer of five hat-tricks. Top marksman in the team that finished runners-up in Division Three North. Voted Player of the 50s by the fans. Fourth-highest in the all-time appearances chart.

No wonder Ken Johnson is still revered by fans at Hartlepool United.

"I have followed the Club from 1935 - my first game was against Grimsby Town in a replay of the Cup," he recalls.

"One thing I remember about the game was the Grimsby goalkeeper was called Tweedy and my headmaster at school was called that too so I never forgot it!

"One of my heroes, who actually shares the leading goalscorer title with me, Jonny Wigham was playing in that game. He was always a role model for me and I looked up to him when I was on the terraces."

What followed was a fifteen-year spell during which Johnson made an astonishing 413 league appearances scoring 98 goals along the way - a record that still stands today.

He played in eight different positions in total, including goalkeeper twice! The only areas he didn't tick off the list were the two full-back positions and centre-half.

"I played for Seaton Holy Trinity Juniors and I got picked to play for the first representative team in the Church League. We went to Grassmere on Easter Monday 1948 and played West London Cumberland a team out of Hartlepool.

"I played in the Church League Cup Final here on a Saturday night and then they signed me straight after the game and that was in May 1949.

"The season then started here in the August and I was in the First Team for the last game in 1949. We played Bradford City and I scored in that game. The Manager at the time though thought I was too weak and feeble and I didn't play any more until Easter Monday when we played Lincoln City."

Soon though, army duties would take Johnson away from the area, though he admits that he was rarely doing anything other than playing football during his sixteen-month stay in Hong Kong.

"While I was there though, I never even had a uniform on - I had trials and got straight into the regimental team and the Army team. Sometimes we would have 10, 000 watching us, other times it would be as many as 25, 000 - that depended on who we were playing.

"When I came back, word had filtered back from Hong Kong that I was playing well because we had played against a couple of English teams over there. I got a telegram from Woolwich to go to London and meet Westgarth in a hotel there.

"So I went down to meet him at the biggest hotel I'd ever been to and he signed me there for £10. I came back here then and played a couple of games, but it took me a while to get the pace of the game. Once I got into it though, I was in the side regularly and got picked to play in the Third Division North Team against the Third Division South."

Now 77, Johnson still looks back on that team from the mid-fifties with a smile. It's his belief that the team he was part of in that era was as good as any team in the Club's history, proving it by going toe-to-toe with the country's elite.

"From 1954/55 to 1958 - that team was as good as any team we have had here. Three years out of the four - as the game is played now, we would have finished off either being promoted or at least in the play offs.

"One year we finished off runners up to Derby County who managed to get the biggest points total ever, we were four behind them but four points ahead of anyone else below us.

"At that time, we also played Nottingham Forest from the Premier League in the Cup. We managed to hold them to a draw here and went to their place and got beat 3-2 in extra time, and we missed a penalty. They were Premier League champions and Cup winners but didn't out-class us at all.

"The next year we played Chelsea and then after them went on to play Manchester United and I think everyone knows about that one. For three years in a row, we played Premier League teams in the Cup and only lost out by one goal in each of them. That showed to me what kind of team we had."

And during that time, Johnson was prolific. He was attracting attention from other clubs, with rumours circulating that Wolves had readied a £10,000 deal to take him to the Black Country - but it transpired the Manager knocked it back, holding out for more money.

"Two things I like to say about myself is that not many people have scored four goals against Newcastle United and four goals against Sunderland!" he smiles.

"When we played Sunderland in the Durham Senior Cup, we beat them by five goals and I scored four of them.

"I scored four goals in a game five times and I don't think anyone else has done that. I never got to take the match ball home though, you couldn't even take a boot lace home in those days!

"I was a typical striker. I don't believe in playing with your back to goal. I played going towards the goal, I was always taught that vision, movement and touch were the best things you could have, they were the three things you wanted to make a player. I always used to work on that, mind my touch was not brilliant but I had the vision and movement.

"I am a believer that football is played from the heart - you can't play it out of a book, it has to come from the heart.

"From the current squad I think James Brown has tremendous potential - he's got that vision, touch and movement. He is not a back-to-goal player. I won't compare myself to him but that's the type of player I like to watch, someone going forward."

At the end of last season at the Club's Centenary Awards night, Johnson was voted by the fans as the Player of the 50s - though he admits that he didn't even vote for himself!

"I backed Watty Moore for that one," he laughed.

"In fact I went round telling people to vote for him in that category because, for me, he is one of the best players to have ever played for the Club. I never understood why he never got picked up by another Club, maybe it was because of his height because he was only 5ft 9ins which is quite small for a central defender.

"It came as a shock when my name was read out as the winner to be honest but a big honour for me - it was great."

This article was first published in the Club's Centenary Matchday Programme 'A Century United'.