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http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/peter-bills-english-football-has-no-values-of-.htmlncy-882968.html

Peter Bills: English football has no values of decency

 

By Peter Bills

Friday, 1 August 2008

 

Giving those who have erred and strayed from their ways another chance might seem a decent humanitarian gesture. But then there’s the case of Joey Barton.

 

How many more chances does this thug of English football need for us to confirm our original judgement? With people like Barton, it’s best to lock them up and throw away the key.

 

Barton the footballer was in Manchester until earlier this week. Not engaged in pre-season training with his club but banged up in Strangeways jail. He was there because he kicked and punched someone so hard that their life was imperilled. And, just as a little occupation on the sidelines you understand, he then attacked one of his own team-mates at Manchester City so violently that the guy almost lost an eye. For that he got, wait for it, a suspended sentence; in other words, a little tap on the knuckles and told not to be a naughty boy again.

 

You can bet your life, he will be. Barton fits perfectly the in thug’s Identikit. Once a hoodlum, always a hoodlum??..

 

Now there is a school of thought that Barton recently has been among his own, rubbing shoulders with the flotsam of society whose company their fellow Brits can most certainly do without. As m’learned judge told the infamous Kray brothers from London’s East End all those years ago when passing sentence “Society has earned a rest from your activities’.

 

Surely football has earned a rest from Joey Barton’s activities. But no, he emerged from jail this week, was soon in talks with his employers at Newcastle and, it is said, was busily defending his rights. The only ‘rights’ Barton should have been talking about was being ‘banged to rights’ in jail.

 

Yet this is no examination of England’s social disorder, an analysis of who and what has turned a once peace-loving nation into a haven for feral youngsters. What it is, is a simple, straightforward query. Why wasn’t Newcastle United Football Club prepared to make a stand for the entire game and dump this thug out of their club? They surely had a golden opportunity to tear up Barton’s contract and strike a significant blow for standards of decency in the game at large.

 

A better chance could scarcely have existed. The nation, cowering under growing attack from the likes of Barton and his fellow wild creatures, is desperate for action. Does not football need to demonstrate it does still cling to certain values of decency?

 

Instead, it is said that Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan wanted to keep Barton so chairman Mike Ashley had to go along with it. If so, both men were wrong.

 

Keegan’s eagerness to give Barton yet another chance is at best misguided, at worst stupid. He has done the entire game and his own considerable reputation immense harm by embracing the devil known as Barton.

 

People like Barton rarely change their ways for the same reason leopards don’t change their spots. They can’t. But you wring your hands in utter despair at a game that is handed a wondrous chance to draw a line in the sand against the thug element and just ignores it.

 

It is therefore, an apt comment on the prevailing standards of English football’s morals that even a commercial organisation is prepared to make a stand for its principles. Nike is believed to have sacked Barton from a £40,000 a year promotional position. The world famous sports clothing and equipment organisation had no more appetite to be associated with a player whose reputation was as an occupant of the gutter.

 

But doesn’t it tell you something about the seedy, self-centred world of English football that even as commercial organisations pull the plug on the thug, soccer embraces him anew. Has there ever been a sadder statement about the present low level repute of the English game?

 

Crikey. :lol:

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I wonder if Nike would have ditched Tiger or Lebron James in the same situation. I doubt it.

 

Barton is nothing to them. I dodn't even know he had a deal with them tbh.

 

Just a nice way to save a bit of money and get themselves a bit of publicity.

 

 

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I wonder if Nike would have ditched Tiger or Lebron James in the same situation. I doubt it.

 

Barton is nothing to them. I dodn't even know he had a deal with them tbh.

 

Just a nice way to save a bit of money and get themselves a bit of publicity.

 

 

 

:lol: Perfectly valid comparison there, of course. You can deride others for having no opinions (erroneously so), but what's the point of you expressing your thoughts when they're all really fucking stupid?

 

I can't see Tiger Woods going on a drunken rampage through Liverpool city centre any time soon, having committed numerous other indiscretions. (that's just my opinion, though.

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Well informed but misses the point of if we get rid of Barton we've pissed £5m+ down the drain and some other team will happily sign him up and we'll be a player/money down whereas someone else will have a decent player for free.

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I'm sorry but all this crap in the media, telling us we have a moral obligation here just makes me more happy that we didn't pander to their wishes. Would any of these journo be willing to compensate us for the financial hit we would take and find us a replacement, so we can make this moral stand ? I don't think so.

 

If we sacked him, you can bet your bottom dollar, he would just turn up somewhere else within 6 months and we would have no chance to recover any losses.

 

As far as I'm concerning they can all go fuck themselves, it's our business and we are under no moral obligation to anyone.

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I wonder if Nike would have ditched Tiger or Lebron James in the same situation. I doubt it.

 

Barton is nothing to them. I dodn't even know he had a deal with them tbh.

 

Just a nice way to save a bit of money and get themselves a bit of publicity.

 

 

 

:lol: Perfectly valid comparison there, of course. You can deride others for having no opinions (erroneously so), but what's the point of you expressing your thoughts when they're all really f***ing stupid?

 

I can't see Tiger Woods going on a drunken rampage through Liverpool city centre any time soon, having committed numerous other indiscretions. (that's just my opinion, though.

 

You really are tedious ...

 

And still you have nothing to say for yourself.

 

The point of course was the stature of the athlete you silly fool.

 

Do you think if Rooney had done this Nike would ditch him? Rooney is definitely capable of it too so don't even bother arguing that.

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When I read "he kicked and punched someone so hard that their life was imperilled." I assumed it was a satirical piece.

 

If I were Barton, I'd sue him for that.

 

 

A very good article, all told. I mean, it's a rant. But it's a principled rant. :clap2:

 

If your principals include lying, victimisation, and witholding human rights, then yes it is.

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Why wasn’t Newcastle United Football Club prepared to make a stand for the entire game and dump this thug out of their club?

 

When has football ever done us any favours? Fuck off.

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In light of this I wonder if the media will now make a stand against all the drugged up criminals in the movie, music and modeling businesses that they continually worship and promote?

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Why wasn?t Newcastle United Football Club prepared to make a stand for the entire game and dump this thug out of their club?

 

When has football ever done us any favours? Fuck off.

 

Well. gosh, there was that time all the premiership chairmans graciously agreed to let us have Glen Roeder as manager!

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Guest elbee909

In light of this I wonder if the media will now make a stand against all the drugged up criminals in the movie, music and modeling businesses that they continually worship and promote?

 

Yeah - just how much Whiny Whorehouse (or whatever her name is) do we need?

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Guest diddimz

In light of this I wonder if the media will now make a stand against all the drugged up criminals in the movie, music and modeling businesses that they continually worship and promote?

 

Only after they sign for us.

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May be in a minority but fail to see what sacking him would achieve. would it help curb his violent behaviou? I doubt it. If anything would be a embittered man back out on the street. If you do your time (very little i admit in this country) should you then be punished further by not being allowed to ply your trade?  If anyone can rehabilitate him and keep him on the straight and narrow that man is Keegan.

 

As for the the bit "Yet this is no examination of England’s social disorder, an analysis of who and what has turned a once peace-loving nation into a haven for feral youngsters". It smacks of looking to the past whilst wearing the rosiest of rosey glasses. We have aways had some kind of social disorders, the victorian gin palaces spring to mind.

 

The same people who this article was written by, edited and is aimed at will be advocating that prison is for rehabilitation not punishment. Unless of course you earn loads of dosh then you can never change.

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Guest guinness_fiend

 

Don't remember all this hoo-hah surrounding Lee Hughes, do you?

 

Er, yes.  It was all over the papers and news to be honest *shrugs*

 

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