Barton: "most footballers are knobs"

[yanno]

Newcastle's Joey Barton tells Radio 4 listeners: 'Most footballers are knobs'

• Midfielder says Sporting Chance made him 'a man'

• Criticises lifestyles of top-flight professionals

• Louise Taylor
• guardian.co.uk,

Joey Barton has been blamed for many things but the Newcastle United midfielder cannot be accused of a lack of candour.

"Most footballers are knobs," said Barton today in a radio interview which is unlikely to prove popular with his fellow professionals. "I meet a lot of them and they are so detached from real life it's untrue. But there was a stage when I was like that."

The 27-year-old, who says he is a changed man since giving up drinking two years ago, expressed dismay at footballers' isolation from the wider world and the rampant materialism of many of his peers.

"Driving around in flash cars and changing them like you change your socks, wearing stupid diamond watches and spending money like it's going out of fashion in the middle of a recession when some people are struggling to put food on the table for the kids – it's not the way to do it," he said.

Interviewed on an edition of BBC Radio 4's Today programme which was guest-edited by his mentor, Tony Adams, Barton said that he was only jolted out of the game's "Peter Pan" world – in which agents organise players' lives, taking care of such mundane basics as bank accounts, bills, mortgages and car insurance – by his addiction to alcohol and inability to control his anger.

A series of unsavoury incidents led him to the Sporting Chance Clinic, which was founded by Adams, the former Arsenal captain. Barton, who served time in prison for his part in an assault in Liverpool city centre two years ago, said the clinic "gave me the tools to understand myself, basically. It helped me grow into a man".

The gulf between Barton's upbringing in Huyton, Merseyside and life as a young player at Manchester City was obvious.

"I was earning £20,000 a week and yet I didn't even know how to behave, I was just a child," he said. "You grow up in an environment where, as long as you're a good player, you're told that you're the best all the time. But whether you're the best footballer in the world or the best golfer or the best cricketer, you're a human being. You might be good at that [sport] but you might be crap at life."

Barton's misdemeanours included stubbing a lit cigarette into the eye of a City team-mate; slapping a fan; assaulting a former City colleague, Ousmane Dabo; and the aforementioned attack on a 16-year-old outside a branch of McDonald's in Liverpool.

"My last night out probably cost me £500,000 plus my reputation," he said. "I must have been as close as you can get to self-destruct. I had two choices, basically. Either you carry on what you're doing and your career's gone, or you address it."

Barton, who is close to full recovery from a serious foot injury, says the British media helped to change his character.

"I am very thankful to the media of this country," he said, suggesting that regular vilification in print and broadcast media forced him to confront several issues.

He also said: "There's stuff I got away with. But I'm very fortunate, because of my profile and the job I do and the fact that I'm in the public eye, it got addressed. And it's only the fact that I'm grounded by the trouble I've been in that's forced me away from being in the football world."

After counselling and introspection, Barton has decided that he is, essentially, "a simple bloke".

"I don't want to be famous," he said. "It was never for me about the cars, the women, the money – whatever people perceive to come with it. I love football, I want to play football."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/dec/30/joey-barton-today-tony-adams

 

[yanno]

Joey Barton and Tony Adams.

A right pair. :grin:

 

[yawa]

I read this earlier...the irony of it was amazing.

 

[PT]

The counsilling is getting through then - or the media training...

 

[TwoSaintsComeMarching]

Not a spice boy then.. lets not show this thread to Gibbs, he may just want him at spurs!! :razz:

 

[Dibby]

Surely having people spending megabucks in the recession was just what was needed?

 

[CaptainCat]

Well maybe he has changed. We'll see.

 

[SpursMad]

He might be a prick that is an absolute ass. But that doesn't mean he isn't right here. Most athletes are knobs. Pampered since the age of 12, millionaires by 20 and narcissistic to a T. Of course they live on another world.

 

[Coyboy]

After counselling and introspection, Barton has decided that he is, essentially, "a simple bloke".

No shit sherlock. You didn't have to pay some shrink to tell you that.

Barton often comes out with these introspective and quasi-intelligent interviews. Three days later, he is bottling some kid. It may not be 'real life' to waste money on this, that and the other-all celebrities do it- but it is preferable and harmless compared to beating the shit out of anything in your way.

Hideous human specimen.

 

[mike_l]

After counselling and introspection, Barton has decided that he is, essentially, "a simple bloke".

No shit sherlock. You didn't have to pay some shrink to tell you that.

Barton often comes out with these introspective and quasi-intelligent interviews. Three days later, he is bottling some kid. It may not be 'real life' to waste money on this, that and the other-all celebrities do it- but it is preferable and harmless compared to beating the shit out of anything in your way.

Hideous human specimen.

Just to play Devils Advocate here, how do you know that he hasn't changed? He has been relatively quiet for a while now on the trouble front.

His most recent incident was telling Alan Shearer he didn't know his arse from his elbow whilst he was expertly taking NUFC into the Championship, and lets face it, everyone here would have loved to do that.

 

[Coyboy]

Just to play Devils Advocate here, how do you know that he hasn't changed? He has been relatively quiet for a while now on the trouble front.

His most recent incident was telling Alan Shearer he didn't know his arse from his elbow whilst he was expertly taking NUFC into the Championship, and lets face it, everyone here would have loved to do that.

Because I have read and seen similar interviews before. For him to act all holier than thou condemning footballers for spending money while he has been busy being violent on and off the pitch is disgraceful.

 

[Mullers]

After counselling and introspection, Barton has decided that he is, essentially, "a simple bloke".

No shit sherlock. You didn't have to pay some shrink to tell you that.

Barton often comes out with these introspective and quasi-intelligent interviews. Three days later, he is bottling some kid. It may not be 'real life' to waste money on this, that and the other-all celebrities do it- but it is preferable and harmless compared to beating the shit out of anything in your way.

Hideous human specimen.

Yep I've heard a lot of his interviews as well, I recall an interview he had condemning the England players. He's a real billy big time.

This is what Barton is all about...

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[mike_l]

Because I have read and seen similar interviews before. For him to act all holier than thou condemning footballers for spending money while he has been busy being violent on and off the pitch is disgraceful.

He makes some good points though, particularly about how players can be good at football but not good at life. Where he comes from the violent behaviour that he has been guilty of ain't all that uncommon. Playing football and being half decent at it he has grown up without having to address these inadequacies in his character.

Just maybe, his big fuck up and subsequent spell inside has forced him to do some growing up and get his head straight.

You may well be right and he is still the same old scally thug, but all of his flaws don't make what he said about modern footballers any less true.

 

[SpurSince57]

On the other hand, the statement that footballers are good at what they do but not at life is, well, like having Stating the Totally Fucking Obvious as your Specialist Subject on 'Mastermind'.

Barton's always come across as bright and articulate (in that irritating Scouser fashion). You can say the same of Bellamy, and Man With The Popular Hairstyle Savage is supposed to be a really smashing bloke off the pitch—I've heard that from a couple of people who've actually met him socially, who've said, 'I always thought he was a total ****, but you'd be amazed at what a nice guy he is.' (Or words to that effect.)

Give him the benefit of the doubt? Well, my mum, who was a good Christian woman, would tell me I should, were she still about. I remain to be convinced, and actions speak louder than words. It wasn't just the going ape off-field, but some particularly nasty, cowardly 'challenges' on-field—for one, raking his studs down Mendes' Achilles, which must have made poor old Pedro wonder what he'd done to City, seeing as he'd barely recovered from Thatcher's assault.

 

[Kendall]

I like him, more than Gazza anyway, who is actually a disgusting human being.

 

[MattyP]

I give it six months before he's acting up again.

 

[Raxscallion]

I like him, more than Gazza anyway, who is actually a disgusting human being.

WTF? Gazza has (and always has had) serious mental health issues. I mean that in a clinical sense, not as any sort of half-witted slur. His culpability for his actions is in no way comparable to Barton's.

 

[spursandbarca]

talk about calling the kettle black