'Ten pints, some angry words, a huge punch-up. That was then.'

[Dave]

Decent read.

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/football_league/article6868939.ece

October 10, 2009

Joey Barton: 'Ten pints, some angry words, a huge punch-up. That was then'

 

Matt Dickinson

 

Joey Barton did not know what his cellmate was inside for — only that he went by the name of “Chopper”. He had no teeth, smoked all day, was “a caveman”, Barton recalls. The Newcastle United player remembers those 74 days inside Strangeways Prison feeling like a two-year stretch.

 

Plenty of time, then, to think about the violent crime that put him there; about the drinking, the fighting, the punching people’s lights out.

 

Time to reflect on how he came to be sitting terrified in prison, too scared to cry, waiting for the door to be slammed shut, locking up him and Chopper for the night.

 

“I just thought, ‘They can stop you coming out of your cell but they can’t stop time, they can’t stop the clock ticking,” he says. “I thought, ‘They’ll have to let me out and when they do, I won’t be coming back, I’m gonna do things differently.’ But I know that’s easy to say.”

 

Easy to say, tough to live up to, as becomes abundantly, sometimes troublingly, clear as Barton reflects for the first time on his violent past, those days behind bars and a new life of sobriety. He says that he has not drunk for two years, since the night he beat up two men, clubbing one on the ground 19 times with his fists, then punching a 16-year-old, on a bender in Liverpool in December 2007.

 

A court heard that he had drunk ten pints and five bottles of lager — but how would Barton know? “I was paralytic,” he says.

 

That Barton is trying to mend his ways is unarguable. We meet at a shooting and fishing day for Sporting Chance, the clinic founded by Tony Adams, where Barton has been an inpatient. He went to Alcoholics Anonymous sessions while in prison and has been through a course in anger management.

 

He is taking steps but as he speaks, babbling at 350 words to the minute in broad Scouse, the regrets are many but his victims might well ask: “Where is the remorse, the apology?”

 

They are the unanswered questions as Barton talks through the incidents that have, he says, made him wonder “am I the anti-Christ”? “I feel like I’m there with Chairman Mao and Hitler some days,” he says. “I read the papers and think, ‘Everyone must hate me.’ ”

 

Anyone who met him on this crisp autumn day would not hate him. They would simply be confused that this chatty, apparently amiable man was so easily provoked into violence — and so disarmingly candid about why he has lashed out.

 

We start with his fight with Ousmane Dabo on the training pitch at Manchester City in May 2007 when Barton insists, despite a conviction for assault, that he was guilty of nothing worse than retaliation. Dabo accused his then team-mate of a “cowardly” attack, but Barton says that he would have protested his innocence had he not already been serving a six-month prison term for the Liverpool attack and been assured that a guilty plea would bring no further time in jail. “I will go to my grave feeling I wasn’t guilty,” he says. “I just couldn’t risk another six months inside.”

 

But what about Dabo’s horribly swollen face, the damaged eye, the injuries that took him to hospital while Barton was unmarked?

 

“I just landed the luckier punch,” he says. “I was just fortunate in that I was able to defend myself better. And where I’m from, if you throw one punch you’re in for a penny, in for a pound. I can’t come up to you, throw one punch, and when you hit me back say, ‘Hang on a minute, that’s not right’ — which was the way Ousmane wanted it.

 

“I knew when he was coming towards me he wasn’t coming to tickle me. We’d obviously had words and I wasn’t prepared to take the chance. On that particular day he ran into someone who was prepared to meet fire with fire.” Barton had still not faced trial for that assault when, seven months later, he went on his all-night session in Liverpool.

 

The outcome can still be seen on YouTube, though it is not for the faint-hearted. Had he seen it? “Yeah, and it’s not great,” he said. “It’s like an out-of-body experience. You know it’s you but you watch it thinking, ‘F***ing hell, anything could have happened.’ I didn’t know who I was scrapping with. It could have been the hardest man in the world. Someone could have killed me.

 

“Hand on heart, for me to say I regret it would be to condone the behaviour of people towards me that night. Obviously I regret the consequences of it, I regret the anguish and hurt I caused to people, not just in my personal life but at the football club. People had stuck up for me and I spat it back in their faces.”

 

It says much for Barton’s swagger at the time that he thought he would escape prison. “I thought, ‘They won’t send me to jail, I’m too high profile, I’ve only had a fight, I haven’t killed anyone,’ ” he says. Only a fight. They are words, he says, that would not raise an eyebrow on the Huyton council estate where he was brought up. “It was be tough or someone would steal your trainers,” he says.

 

His younger half-brother, Michael, is in prison for the murder of Anthony Walker, a black Liverpool teenager, which raises the question of what sort of childhood they had? Was it violent?

 

“I had a fine upbringing but if I went into the house crying that someone in the street had hit me, I’d be told to get back out there and sort it out. If they beat you with their fists, pick up a stick. I know I’ve sometimes gone overboard in the way I’ve defended myself but where I’m from once you throw one punch, once you’re fighting, there are no rules. If you pick a fight, it’s until someone goes down.

 

“Now, when I feel myself getting angry, it’s about taking myself out of the situation, learning to walk away. I’d never been taught that. Since I was a kid it was if someone confronts you, stand up for yourself, fight fire with fire.

 

“Hand on heart, I can’t sit here today and say that if it had been 10am and I’d been sober and they’d said what they said about my family, I wouldn’t have reacted the same way. The main thing is to take myself out of those situations in the first place. At the end of day, if I’m p***ed out of my brains at 5.30am in Liverpool city centre, I’m putting myself in a situation where a gang of scallies can have a go at me.”

 

Barton was “on a course to destruction” but it took prison to make him realise how far he was down the road. “You could have told me until you were blue in the face but it took going to jail to make me realise,” he says.

 

When the penny did drop, he says it was with a resounding clang. Waiting to appear in court one day, he was sat in a bare holding cell. There was nothing apart from his own fear and a wall covered with graffiti.

 

“I was bored so I started reading it,” he says. “I always remember this saying — ‘I don’t know why you are here, what you are here for, but someone wants you to learn a lesson. Don’t be a fool, don’t have to read this again to learn.’ It was like a light had come on.”

 

Barton says that his 11 weeks in prison had a profound effect on his life. “There’s not a man in there who’s not scared,” he says. “In there, you’re on your own.

 

“I went from being on good money at Newcastle to being on £7.50 a week in jail. I went from being a rich man to having nothing. Everything is taken away.

 

“A pillow in your bed isn’t the same. Being able to get in the bath, you can’t do that. It’s not about what kind of car you’ve got because you’ve got nothing. It strips you of everything. Everyone’s at their lowest ebb.”

 

He was released in July last year and set about his 200 hours of community service, picking up litter at Newcastle Falcons rugby union ground, painting “till they realised I was no good at it” and coaching with kids from damaged backgrounds.

 

When his career resumed, he was jeered at every stadium but only one player, from Blackburn Rovers, sought to wind him up.

 

“I didn’t actually know who he was,” he says, with a bout of laughter. “I had to ask him to turn round so I could see the name on the back of his shirt. He’s irrelevant so I won’t name names.”

 

All seemed to be going fine, albeit in a woeful Newcastle side, until Barton was sent off against Liverpool as the team fought against relegation. Throwing himself into a reckless challenge as Xabi Alonso took the ball to the corner flag, he even earned a rebuke from Peter Kay, his Sporting Chance mentor.

 

Barton’s defence? “You are getting beat 3-0, they are doing ‘olés’, passing it round the park, emotions run high,” he says. “I’m not a big fan of Xabi anyway. I tend to think he’s a little bit of a play-actor and he had a hand in a lot of players getting sent off last year.

 

“I've seen people do lot worse tackles and not get red but I have to accept that if I do stupid tackles like that then I’m putting myself up there to be shot at.” Alan Shearer and Iain Dowie, the assistant manager, turned on Barton in the dressing room and an altercation ensued.

 

“If people were saying it was stupid, reckless, I would have held my hands up, but when it got personal then I had to say, ‘No, this isn’t right,’ ” he says. “I stood up for myself.”

 

Shearer banished Barton from the club for the rest of the season but they bumped into each other in the summer at Redcar. Barton winced when he saw that they both had a horse in the same race.

 

“His won, mine came third,” he says. “I was a little bit unsure how it would go but Alan made a beeline for me and we shook hands. He handled it like men should. He’s gone up in my estimation.”

 

Shearer could soon be back as manager on Tyneside. Barton will not be available for some weeks because of injury — and, no, he did not shoot himself in the foot, although he smiles as a shotgun blast goes off. “Just like where I grew up,” he says.

 

At 27 he has time to rebuild his career, but his England career has surely been and gone, with the solitary appearance under Steve McClaren as a substitute against Spain in February 2007.

 

“I’d like to be taken out of the one-cap wonders,” he says. “It’s a quarter of a cap.

 

“Where is it? At home in a drawer. It is something I am immensely proud of, and a lot better players than me have got none. But what is it in the whole scheme of life? It’s not gonna crawl out of the drawer and make everything all right if I get in trouble again.”

 

And that is the crux. Will Barton find himself in more bother? Has he truly reformed?

 

“Everything that has been before has gone,” he says. “I can’t change it. If I get done for speeding it’s like I’ve committed mass genocide. I understand why. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. You meet me and you think, ‘Yob, thug.’

 

“I can only strive to do better and I’ve abstained from drinking for almost two years. From the day it happened. Not a drop.

 

“Can I say I won’t do something again? It is an impossible question to answer. You don’t know what circumstances life will bring.

 

“It is hard to change any instinct when something is in you like that. You are fighting against it. It’s a work in progress.

 

“I’ve been face down in the s**t, the flag as low on the mast as it can go, and I am fighting now to get it back up.”

[Kaizero]

but they bumped into each other in the summer at Redcar. Barton winced when he saw that they both had a horse in the same race.

 

“His won, mine came third,” he says. “I was a little bit unsure how it would go but Alan made a beeline for me and we shook hands. He handled it like men should. He’s gone up in my estimation.”

 

Blatantly been saying for ages how they met after the season and "cleared" the air. Hopefully people can stop saying "Fuck no Shearer wouldn't speak with Barton after what happened, liar." to me now

 

Good read.

[Cronky]

Sod it, I've got a soft spot for our Joey. I rate him as a player, and I still hope that, somehow, he can develop that bit more self-control.

 

Thinking different and doing different aren't the same things though.

 

Does he have a problem with those not from these shores, by birth or ancestry? Dabo, Alonso, the Mackem whose name I can't remember. It's something he might have to look at.

[jdckelly]

a rather fasinating insight into bartons past. I have to say I hope I really hope that he has left his sordid off the field stuff in the past and learned his lesson, and in fairness in that respect there hasnt been a peep out of him (other than as i recall the sun making a story out of forgetting to pay for a train ticket or something like that) what I found most curious is this bit

 

All seemed to be going fine, albeit in a woeful Newcastle side, until Barton was sent off against Liverpool as the team fought against relegation. Throwing himself into a reckless challenge as Xabi Alonso took the ball to the corner flag, he even earned a rebuke from Peter Kay, his Sporting Chance mentor.

 

Barton’s defence? “You are getting beat 3-0, they are doing ‘olés’, passing it round the park, emotions run high,” he says. “I’m not a big fan of Xabi anyway. I tend to think he’s a little bit of a play-actor and he had a hand in a lot of players getting sent off last year.

 

“I've seen people do lot worse tackles and not get red but I have to accept that if I do stupid tackles like that then I’m putting myself up there to be shot at.” Alan Shearer and Iain Dowie, the assistant manager, turned on Barton in the dressing room and an altercation ensued.

 

“If people were saying it was stupid, reckless, I would have held my hands up, but when it got personal then I had to say, ‘No, this isn’t right,’ ” he says. “I stood up for myself.”

he's got a point about alonso too, great player but does go down easy even if his tackle was stupid

[Dave]

Presumably he means players and/or staff were laying into him with personal insults. 'Thick cunt' would have sufficed.

[jdckelly]

Presumably he means players and/or staff were laying into him with personal insults. 'Thick c***' would have sufficed.

the bust up was with Shearer and Dowie so presumably one of them layed into him with personal insults which even with an incident as stupid as bartons sending off was is not particularly good man management

[Cronky]

a rather fasinating insight into bartons past. I have to say I hope I really hope that he has left his sordid off the field stuff in the past and learned his lesson, and in fairness in that respect there hasnt been a peep out of him (other than as i recall the sun making a story out of forgetting to pay for a train ticket or something like that) what I found most curious is this bit

 

All seemed to be going fine, albeit in a woeful Newcastle side, until Barton was sent off against Liverpool as the team fought against relegation. Throwing himself into a reckless challenge as Xabi Alonso took the ball to the corner flag, he even earned a rebuke from Peter Kay, his Sporting Chance mentor.

 

Bartons defence? You are getting beat 3-0, they are doing olés, passing it round the park, emotions run high, he says. Im not a big fan of Xabi anyway. I tend to think hes a little bit of a play-actor and he had a hand in a lot of players getting sent off last year.

 

I've seen people do lot worse tackles and not get red but I have to accept that if I do stupid tackles like that then Im putting myself up there to be shot at. Alan Shearer and Iain Dowie, the assistant manager, turned on Barton in the dressing room and an altercation ensued.

 

If people were saying it was stupid, reckless, I would have held my hands up, but when it got personal then I had to say, No, this isnt right, he says. I stood up for myself.

he's got a point about alonso too, great player but does go down easy even if his tackle was stupid

 

I think what he means is Shearer got personal. Shearer was furious with him (understandably) and called it a 'coward's tackle', and looking at that account, 'coward' is the worst thing that you can call Joey Barton.

 

Barton is right in a sense - it was stupid and irresponsible, rather than cowardly. But if you behave like that and let everyone down, you've got to take the stick on the chin.

[Guest schmuck]

Thanks for that, interesting read

[CaliMag]

That's all fine and dandy, but he hasn't done the business for us. Personality and criminal past aside he should still be sold.

[jdckelly]

a rather fasinating insight into bartons past. I have to say I hope I really hope that he has left his sordid off the field stuff in the past and learned his lesson, and in fairness in that respect there hasnt been a peep out of him (other than as i recall the sun making a story out of forgetting to pay for a train ticket or something like that) what I found most curious is this bit

 

All seemed to be going fine, albeit in a woeful Newcastle side, until Barton was sent off against Liverpool as the team fought against relegation. Throwing himself into a reckless challenge as Xabi Alonso took the ball to the corner flag, he even earned a rebuke from Peter Kay, his Sporting Chance mentor.

 

Barton’s defence? “You are getting beat 3-0, they are doing ‘olés’, passing it round the park, emotions run high,” he says. “I’m not a big fan of Xabi anyway. I tend to think he’s a little bit of a play-actor and he had a hand in a lot of players getting sent off last year.

 

“I've seen people do lot worse tackles and not get red but I have to accept that if I do stupid tackles like that then I’m putting myself up there to be shot at.” Alan Shearer and Iain Dowie, the assistant manager, turned on Barton in the dressing room and an altercation ensued.

 

“If people were saying it was stupid, reckless, I would have held my hands up, but when it got personal then I had to say, ‘No, this isn’t right,’ ” he says. “I stood up for myself.”

he's got a point about alonso too, great player but does go down easy even if his tackle was stupid

 

I think what he means is Shearer got personal. Shearer was furious with him (understandably) and called it a 'coward's tackle', and looking at that account, 'coward' is the worst thing that you can call Joey Barton.

 

Barton is right in a sense - it was stupid and irresponsible, rather than cowardly. But if you behave like that and let everyone down, you've got to take the stick on the chin.

perhaps I'm looking into it too much, but with all the talk of shearer taking over in dugout whenever the fat man sells I must admit there are many things worrying me that were noticeable during his brief tenure in charge and one of them is man management, I know bartons about as hard a player to handle as there is but I compare how Shearer handled a bust up with barton to how hughton handled one and it speaks for itself. as i said perhaps i'm overthinking this

[colinmk]

That's all fine and dandy, but he hasn't done the business for us. Personality and criminal past aside he should still be sold.

 

Just what I was thinking. Was a good player for Man City, hasn't been for us and has had enough chances imo.

[jdckelly]

That's all fine and dandy, but he hasn't done the business for us. Personality and criminal past aside he should still be sold.

its all fine and dandy saying just sell him but you need a buyer and there ain't anyone out there who will buy him, absolutely no one is going to chance a move for him, if they were willing to risk it then he'd have been gone during the summer as I'd think mike ashley would have taken any bid for him

[Guest Alan Shearer 9]

It's pathetic how people stick up for this guy when he shows no real remorse. We've heard all the shit about him growing up rough before, big whoop.

 

RE Dabo: 'self defence'

 

RE Mcdonalds incident: 'I regret the consequences but I was pushed'

 

 

You'd just been given an extra life, signed by a new club who went the extra mile and paid his £250k loyalty bonus or however much it was to get him, and he's out getting fucking hammered and getting in fights with the public, with court dates looming.

 

RE Alonso aftermath with Shearer: 'It got personal I had to stand up for myself'

 

 

As Joey Barton (the insufferable cunt who has offered so little to this football club in his time here other than bad headlines) would say, 'Joey Barton knows that Joey Barton can turn himself around. Joey Barton knows that Joey Barton was not at fault for these incidents, Joey Barton knows that Joey Barton is a top class player who has just been unlucky.'

 

I've stuck up for this guy thinking for the good of the club we should keep him given the circumstances of relegation etc, but once again he's offered fuck all and this article and his attitude within it boils my piss. I look forward to the day when this club is rid of him and all the horrific shite he's brought along with him. Scum.

[Dinho lad]

“I was a little bit unsure how it would go but Alan made a beeline for me and we shook hands. He handled it like men should. He’s gone up in my estimation.”

 

But, but, but... he's like Souness.

[Fugazi]

That's all fine and dandy, but he hasn't done the business for us. Personality and criminal past aside he should still be sold.

 

Just what I was thinking. Was a good player for Man City, hasn't been for us and has had enough chances imo.

 

Cant really afford to lose yet more personnel though, even if he is out for the next couple of months at least.

[Guest Geordiesned]

My heart fucking bleeds.

[ikri]

Well he clearly means it this time, totally different from every other time he's done something rash and stupid before coming out with a deep, heartfelt apology a few months later to tell us all that it won't ever happen again.

 

He's an accident waiting to happen and I simply do not believe that he'll be able to see out his contract here without doing something stupid (yet) again.

[Fenham Mag]

The" feel sorry for me, I'm Joey Barton" story goes on. Can't wait to get rid of him.

[Mr. Snrub]

Sod it, I've got a soft spot for our Joey. I rate him as a player,

 

Me too.

[Robster]

People will forget if he turns in some blinding, match-winning, all-conquering, midfield performances this season.

Still waiting like

 

[lovejoy]

Canny read, would mean more if he opened his gob after a good run of form. Sadly, he talks more than he plays.

[DubblyDubblyDubbly]

He's incapable of performing while he's on the Ritalin..... when he's off it he's a psycho.I hope he get's over his injury, gets fit and Fu**s Off.

[GM]

He's always be ruthless in attack off the field.

 

 

I'm not buying into this lowlife's plea for clemency. Fuck him. Get rid.

[Ronaldo]

Sod it, I've got a soft spot for our Joey. I rate him as a player,

 

Me too.

 

and me. The Blackburn player was Keith Andrews btw, cunt

[johnnypd]

comes across as a complete cunt tbh. Doesn't help that all these schemes to help him out have been about helping 'joey barton' which further reinforce the idea that he is something special. what he needs to realise is that he isnt the centre of the universe. he's not even that good a footballer. It's not in here but he mentions elsewhere that, as he acted contrite over his bust up with Hughton in pre-season, he said - "I am not saying what I said was not right" which mirrors what he says in this article "“Hand on heart, for me to say I regret it would be to condone the behaviour of people towards me that night. " what he needs to really realise is that, no, you really are in the wrong, you really should regret it, and you really are that stupid, especially when you actually attacked a passerby that night who had nothing to do with anything that happened. a sadly deluded individual who is as far away from having his problems solved as ever. the fact he is as effusive as ever in his self-promotion is proof enough.