John Mackie (footballer, born 1976)

John George Mackie (born 5 July 1976 in London) is a former professional footballer who is best known for his time at Reading F.C. and Leyton Orient Mackie was a central defender.

From a young age John showed a talent for playing football both representing his school and the Area London School Boys team. His dream was to play for Arsenal with whom he had a try out, but was unsuccessful. Later he gained an apprenticeship at West Ham United. At the end of his two-year apprenticeship John was released by West Ham and he started work on a fruit and veg stall before joining Crawley Town in 1998, playing in the Southern Premier League. A year late he was signed by, then Reading manager, Alan Pardew and joined the then Division Two club (Now called League One). Pardew immediately loaned John out to Sutton United to gain more experience before he start playing for Reading on a semi regular basis. In his time at Reading John got to play against Chelsea in a League Cup game where the strike force that night consisted of Hernan Crespo and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.

John's time came to an end at Reading in 2004 when he signed for Leyton Orient.

In the 2005-06 season, Mackie made a formidable partnership for Leyton Orient with Gabriel Zakuani, and went down in Orient folklore by captaining the Os to their first automatic promotion in 36 years. He was released by the club at the end of the 2006-07 season.

On 16 May 2007, he signed for Brentford on a two-year contract. Two days after signing for the Bees, it was announced that Mackie would be Brentford captain for the 2007-08 season. However, Mackie only manager 14 league appearances for the club before leaving by mutual consent. He signed for AFC Hornchurch on 18 January 2008, he has since retired from the game and now runs a fruit and veg stall in Camden Market. On 7 August 2008, Mackie signed for Hertford Town F.C. in a semi-professional capacity.

John was appointed assistant manager of Greenwich Borough in December 2015