Joey Barton

Joey Barton
Image from: gtplanet.net

Joey Barton


Current Club: Banned until 31st May 2018.
Previous Clubs: Burnley, Rangers, QPR, Newcastle United, Manchester City.
Loan Clubs: Marseille.


International: England 1 cap.
Trophies Won: None.


Barton is one of those players that you always hate to see play for the other side but, despite, or maybe because of, his nasty streak he is often beloved of fans of his own team. Most people though would prefer not to have him associated with their own team as he has a long history of trouble making and can often be as much of a hindrance to his team as he is a help. In fact his rap sheet does not make for nice reading:

2004: Gets his first red card, for two yellows.

2004: Dropped from the team, Barton storms out of Eastlands.

2004: Causes a mass brawl in a pre-season 'friendly' at Doncaster. Then manager Kevin Keegan publicly criticises him.

2004: Stubs a lit cigar out in the eye of a Man City youth team member, James Tandy, during the club's Christmas party. Barton was fined 4 weeks wages, with a further 2 weeks wages fine suspended for a year. Tandy sued Barton and received £65,000 in damages.

2005: Gets into a fight with a 15 year old Everton fan on City's pre-season tour, in a hotel in Bangkok. Richard Dunne had to jump in to save the youngster. Fined 8 weeks wages by the club after being found guilty of gross misconduct. Then manager Stuart Pearce sends Barton to anger management therapy.

2006: Receives his second ever red card for a two footed lunge on Abdoulaye Faye in a 2-0 defeat against Bolton Wanderers.

2006: Driving through Liverpool city centre at 2am, Barton hits a pedestrian and breaks their leg.

2007: Barton escapes punishment for a career threatening challenge on Dickson Etuhu, after jumping in the air to kick Etuhu on the upper thigh. Somehow the referee failed to see violent intent and he was not charged by the FA! The challenge was bad enough to see a campaign started to have him banned for life.

2007: Barton attacks then Man City teammate Ousmane Dabo from behind, then continues to hit him as he lay on the floor until the French midfielder was rendered unconscious. Dabo understandably calls Barton a coward and is forced to miss the remainder of the season as he recovers from the attack. Barton was charged with assault and was handed a 4 month suspended jail sentence and 200 hours community service, as well as a 12 match ban from the FA, 6 of which were suspended and a £25,000 fee.



2008: While a Newcastle player Barton was jailed for 6 months for assault and affray after a street attack in Liverpool city centre which the presiding judge, Judge Henry Globe QC, described as a 'violent and cowardly act'. Barton was caught on CCTV knocking an unidentified man to the ground, then straddling the man and punching him 4 or 5 times more as his cousin threw food at the victim. Barton then punched him up to 15 times more. Just minutes later Barton, then 25, attacked a 16 year old, punching him and leaving him with broken teeth. All while he was awaiting trial for criminal damage of a taxi and a second trial over his vicious and cowardly assault on Man City teammate Ousmane Dabo. The attack took place in December 2007.

2009: Barton tries to end Xabi Alonso's career with a reckless and needless challenge that made no attempt to win the ball and had a malicious intent to injure the player. He was immediately red carded. Alan Shearer, Newcastle manager at the time, publicly criticised Barton for a 'coward's tackle' and suspended him. Barton hit back at Shearer telling him that he was 'the best player at the club' and so Shearer had to play him. Shearer disagreed, calling Barton 'sh*t', to which Barton replied Shearer was a 'sh*t manager with sh*t tactics', then turned on assistant manager Iain Dowie when he tried to intervene. Newcastle banned Barton indefinitely.

2010: The FA hits Barton with a 3 match ban for punching Morten Gamst Pederson in the gut and which went unseen by the referee at the time.

2010: Barton received a mere warning from the FA after shouting homophobic abuse aimed at Fernando Torres, as well as making lewd gestures aimed in the then-Liverpool forward's direction during a 3-1 defeat to the Reds. The FA decided not to ban him as they saw it as 'non-racist' oddly.




2011: Transfer listed by Newcastle following a series of Twitter comments criticising the club. He is signed by Neil Warnock at QPR, who he later repays by publicly slagging him off on Twitter as well!

2012: Sent off for QPR in a home defeat against Norwich City.

2012: Sent off again, this time on the final day of the season in a match at old club Man City after he elbowed Carlos Tevez, then knees Sergio Aguero before attempting to headbutt Vincent Kompany.

2012: Follows up the sending off with a Twitter rant aimed at Shearer and then Gary Lineker, who he told to get "back under your stone you odious little toad". Their crime? Criticising the midfielder for his actions against Man City. His bizarre rant included numerous names aimed in the direction of Shearer, as well as saying how he would not have minded if it had been Lineker that criticised him on Match of the Day, only to then slag off Lineker for doing exactly that!

2012: Banned for 12 matches and fined £75,000 after being charged with two acts of violent conduct, against Aguero and Kompany. He denied the latter charge, but a personal hearing found him guilty, unsurprisingly.

2012: QPR sent Barton off on loan to Marseille and he spent most of the time there on Twitter blaming everyone else at QPR for the club's relegation, except himself, the captain, who had let the club down just when they needed him with his red card at Man City on the final day of the season.

2013: Stated publicly he would never return to QPR, only for a permanent move to Marseille and a move to Everton to collapse forcing him to return.

2013: Sent off once again after attempting to strike Tom Huddlestone, then at Hull City, in the testicles, right in front of the referee.

There is more, but to be honest I am not sure that he deserves me going to the effort of pointing out his playacting, childish rants, moronic attempts to pretend to be clever or self-serving attempts to get pity for his problems. The sad thing is, hidden behind the venomous little antics and utter stupidity and nastiness there is actually a good central midfielder there. But it will always be overshadowed by his record.





While Barton can pass the ball, has good vision and a decent shot, he can not be relied upon, as he is always on the verge of an explosion of mindless rage, particularly if his team is losing. He will always allow himself to be wound up, even if the opponent is a non-league team that he should just concentrate on outplaying, as he showed in last season's FA Cup. What it comes down to is simple, he is a liability because he is not good enough to get away with the mess he causes.

To sum it up, Barton is a fairly decent Premier League level midfielder, but a cowardly, nasty and vicious little scumbag who will look to blame everyone but himself. Everything about him is self-serving, selfish or fake. You have to question why he is employed by the BBC, using public funds to pay his wages.