Tony Blair said that he did not talk about his strong religious beliefs while
serving as Prime Minister because he was concerned that people would think
he was a nutter. Clearly, for Joey Barton that ship has sailed, so he is in
a stronger position to unburden his soul on the workings of the Almighty.
Barton said that he has always felt he had a higher calling and will be
judged only at the end of life in the moment when he stands face to face
with his maker.
This is not entirely true. There is a less spiritual judgment that will be
made at Manchester Crown Court in the summer, after Barton’s alleged assault
on Ousmane Dabo, his former Manchester City team-mate. One may also say that
a judgment was made by Kevin Keegan, the City manager at the time, when he
fined Barton six weeks’ wages for trying to extinguish a lit cigar in the
eye of Jamie Tandy, a youth-team player, at a Christmas party in 2004.
Richard Dunne, the club captain, then judged Barton when he intervened after
an altercation with a mouthy Everton fan in Thailand, suffering injury in
the process. And Mikaël Silvestre, the Manchester United defender, made his
own judgment in July, when he announced that he had rejected a move to
Newcastle United, Barton’s club, “out of respect to Ousmane Dabo”, who is
one of his closest friends. The idea of accepting Barton as a teammate was
too much for him.
So, judgments are being made regularly; only Barton refuses to acknowledge
them. He prefers to await his verdict from a sacred being, whose existence
is unproven, at some unspecified future point in another dimension. Well,
wouldn’t we all, chum.
At this point, I have a confession to make. I am one of the voters Blair
worried about – one that equates organised religion with institutionalised
lunacy. I do not want a man with his finger on the trigger who thinks that
we are going to a better place; indeed, I feel that it is best for us all if
the leader responsible for choosing the road to peace or war believes that
all that death holds is lifeless eternity in a cold, dark hole in the ground
and what happens here is all we are.
I don’t want religion from politicians, I don’t even want it from doctors. I
changed surgeries because there were too many posters going up in the
waiting-room offering religious counselling in times of crisis. I am not
comfortable when the person who checks me over operates with a safety net. I
don’t want him believing that if he misses a tumour or a murmur, I end up in
a better place fishing for sticklebacks with my grandad. I want my doctor to
believe that one mistake blows it for me, too.
“We don’t do God,” Alastair Campbell, Blair’s former spin-doctor, said and
neither do I. Barton does, however, and that may be his problem.
Last week the Pensions Institute at the Cass Business School, a respected
college ranked first in London in The Guardian University Guide 2008,
produced figures estimating that the average life expectancy for those born
from 1985 onwards would be 91. Barton was born on September 2, 1982, and is
fit and healthy, so he is in that ball park. This gives him roughly 66 years
to come up with some pretty good excuses, mitigation and alibis to justify
his behaviour down here and by the sounds of it he is putting in the hard
yards already.
Speaking to Gabby Logan, the Times columnist, on Inside Sport, her BBC show,
Barton said: “I don’t think I’ll ever be judged on this earth. Whatever
higher power it is, when you finally meet him you’ve got to answer for every
decision you’ve made. I believe I can stand in front of my maker and say,
‘Yeah, I did this for this reason, that for this reason.’ ” It is a nice
thought, and a convenient one, because it absolves the individual of
responsibility to those around him, with the promise of greater scrutiny
from the judge of all judges in the afterlife. If we are familiar with the
logic, it is because it echoes the speeches of loners more commonly seen
with machineguns stalking the corridors of schools and public buildings on
grimy newsreel footage.
Barton’s charge-sheet may contain misdemeanours when compared with the crimes
of the powerful or the truly wicked, but that does not make his get-out
clause any more palatable.
What will he say to the chap upstairs when asked why he poked a cigar into
Tandy’s face? That there was provocation – Tandy had been attempting to set
fire to Barton’s shirt – or that his victim had turned around unexpectedly
and he had been aiming only for the back of his head, which has also been
suggested – is God falling for that one? Nobody else is.
Tandy was fined two weeks’ wages, Barton received three times that, which
suggests those at the club regarded his behaviour and his reaction as
disproportionate. And football club managers are pragmatic types. If there
was a way to find for the first team’s star midfield player, rather than a
no-mark from the youth ranks, it would have been done.
Tandy was released by City the next summer and is playing for Droylsden,
second from bottom in the Blue Square Premier, after a spell at Lancaster
City, of the UniBond League first division north. In other words, he was
expendable, had Keegan been able to rationalise it. This higher power must
be a very lenient fellow, then, if he is prepared to give Barton a fairer
hearing than a football club with a £5 million asset to keep on side.
Barton told the BBC that the problem he faces with the Dabo assault charge is
that there is no video footage of the incident. “I’m defending myself, but
there is only my opinion against his opinion and the opinion of witnesses,”
he said.
Witnesses are Barton’s bête noires because they bring this spiritual flight of
fancy back to reality, ensuring that his actions and their consequences will
not be measured only in some higher realm. If the witnesses say that he did
cause actual bodily harm to Dabo, sentence will not be deferred to the
hereafter. He could go to prison in this world for as long as five years. It
would be a miserable fate for a man who came so close to rising above his
circumstances.
According to Barton, he has four family members in prison for murder – a
half-brother and three cousins. The Borgias would have found it hard to
match that strike-rate. Barton said that at school he knew that he had this
higher calling, which he thought was football but now suspects is not.
It would be easy to deride these pretensions were it not also true that for
Barton to have made a success of his life from such a desperate environment
is an achievement far greater than that of many professional sportsmen
(compare his background with that of, say, Frank Lampard or the Neville
brothers). Barton comes from Huyton, six miles outside Liverpool, a maze of
sink estates and rotten Sixties planning, crowned by the notorious Woolfall
Heath Avenue high-rise.
Barton was driven, though. He left school with ten GCSEs – one of his former
teachers, who is now working on Tyneside, visited him after his move to
Newcastle and recalled that he had the wit to pursue an academic career –
and persevered through initial rejections over his size at Everton and
Nottingham Forest to win a professional contract with Manchester City. That
takes dedication, character and many sundry qualities that a man with
Barton’s troubled history is not believed to possess.
He also has a talent for cutting to the heart of the matter intellectually. Of
all the forests of newsprint and verbiage devoted to England’s sorry exit
from the 2006 World Cup finals, it is Barton’s appraisal that will live
longest in the memory. “England did nothing in the World Cup,” he said, “so
why were they bringing books out? ‘We got beat in the quarter-finals. I
played like s***. Here’s my book.’ Who wants to read that?”
His recent condemnation of verbally vicious Newcastle fans may not have been
tactful, or helpful, but it showed a willingness to place his head above the
parapet that must make Sam Allardyce, the club’s underfire manager, wish he
had more like him.
Yet the big one, Joey ducks. What if there is no celestial jury, no heavenly
Father to flip through a lifetime of incendiary Christmas parties and
alleged ABH? What if this is all you get and the judges are Silvestre and
Dunne and Keegan and all those with no higher calling other than to get
through life without having six inches of Havana inserted in an eye socket?
Then, while Barton’s motives may be construed in the afterlife, he will
continue to be a misunderstood and isolated figure on earth. If he wishes
this to end, judgment day has to start now with a being whose existence is
not in doubt because he can be seen every morning: in the mirror.
David Walker:
This is specious reasoning (as well as yet another instance of Godwin's Rule striking again). Neither Hitler, Stalin nor Mao engaged in their slaughter-sprees BECAUSE they were atheists - they did it because they were ideologues.
Mark, Worthing, UK
Hi Martin,
Let's sum up the history of atheist leaders in the 20th century:
Stalin murdered millions of his own people: atheist
Mao murdered millions of his own people: atheist
Pol Pot murdered millions of his own peope: atheist
Hitler murdered millions of his own people: nobody's really sure what he believed, but he was fueled by a mixture of hatred and lunacy, not a belief in the almighty.
I'll go ahead and take leaders who believe in God, thanks.
David Walker, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
Bob, "If he read up about it he would find that God does delegate his judgement to the courts and even employers" ?? I'd love to know what book you read up on Gods delegation of judgement !! I'm not aware of any writings by God himself?
I'm afraid anytime you try to be religion into any discussion whether it be politics or sport the discussion soon becomes an irrational one... .best kept apart for fear of offending the sensitive souls out there.
John, Dublin,
Bob, might I suggest that you pick up a copy of Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion. It’s a fantastic book. It elegantly rebuts the (baseless) assumption of religious types that their religion is the basis of our morality. He refers to a study in which increasingly complex moral dilemmas where put to people from different religions and cultural backgrounds. The groups included Christian’s, atheists and even a remote tribe who had little contact with the west and no organised religion. The participants from each group made similar moral choices to the other groups to each moral conundrum. This suggests that our morality is perhaps more instinctive than learned. Dawkin’s goes onto offer a Darwinian explanation for the results. It’s fascinating stuff. You might also want to pick up a copy of the bible. I seriously doubt you would want to live in a world where our morality is guided by that text – barbequing your own child anyone?
Sandy, Martin is a journalist and he can write about whatever he pleases. If you are offended then that’s tough. Neither you nor your faith are entitled to immunity from the criticism of a rational mind. If you don’t like it read something else.
Adam, Bristol,
It is very rare that the issue of God's judgement is raised in a newspaper and I would like to thank Mr. Samuel for doing so. If he read up about it he would find that God does delegate his judgement to the courts and even employers, so the Crown court's and Manchester City's judgments are all part of God's loving disciplining of Joey Barton.
As to whether there is a final judgement, don't our own strong desires for fairness indicate that things must be put right in the end? Even Manchester City football club try to do it. The much bigger operation of world history needs it even more. Indeed God does promise it.
Mr. Samuel earns his living by making black and white judgements. Where does he get his standards from to back them up? If it is society, that is always changing. If it is his mother and father we, his readers don't know them. Is he playing God himself?
Bob Chamberlain, Otley,
Barton isn't big and neither are Newcastle; if they were they wouldn't be staffed by rejects and might have managed a trophy in the last half century rather than the hot air (probably a result of the ralgex the bear chested spray themselves with) that normally emanates from St James.
jonners, weybridge,
If you don't want religion from politicians, then you are living on the wrong planet. Every nuclear weapon on the planet is controlled by a man with religious conviction, or a political ideology akin to a religion. Please stick to commenting on football, and sport in general, and keep out of politics.
bobby tran, enfield,
Newcastle United's supporters "are very probably the most tolerant in the world"? What planet is Wilf Bell living on? Newcastle fans are whingers, pure and simple. When they were down at the bottom of Division Two, just before Keegan took over, they had gates in the low teens. Of course, as soon as our Kev started winning matches, they were all Whay-Aying their way to St James's without their replica shirts because we're well hard.
The bottom line is that they don't deserve a manager like Allardyce, any more than they deserved Keegan, Robson, Gullitt, or Souness. Well, maybe they deserved Souness.
And Sandy Gardner should re-read what Martin Samuel said. He, like I, clearly has problem about people believing in mumbo-jumbo: the difficulty comes when they want to inflict it on the rest of us. Neither Barton not Bliar have the right to cop-out by saying "I will be judged by a higher power." Barton behaves a thug much of the time. Just like Bliar was/is dishonest all of the time,
Languedocfox, Ventenac en Minervois, France
Manny, London - "it's easy to call Joey Barton a thug".
It's easy to tell it like it is. End of story.
John, Wolverhampton,
I am not a Newcastle United fan but am aware of their history. The club's supporters are very probably the most tolerant in the world - but is it any wonder that some of them are beginning to show some frustration with the club's horrendous record in the last few decades?
Joey Barton and the club's manager are not the sort of people I would want at any club that I supported but no doubt they have some merit.
Martin Samuel is very probably right about religion but seems a bit too dogmatic about it - afterall, intellectually, he cannot be absolutely sure that there is nothing beyond the grave!
Wilf Bell, Camberley, England
It's easy to call Joey Barton a thug, and surely he first needs to admit to himself that he has a problem and then he can proceed to getting a solution.But one thing i can say about him is he speaks his mind and is a more than decent footballer who without his track record would have had more England caps than some mediocre players who keep getting called into the squad.The excuse about his upbringing and where he grew doesnt hold, there are lots of footballers from much worse conditions in South America and Africa and dare i say Europe who have emerged without all the bad baggage.
Manny, London, UK
I think that the Sports Writer of the Year award has gone to young Mr.Samuel's head.
He seems to be under the impression that the great British public are interested in his views on wider matters than footy-witness his articles in the main part of the "Times".
I'm afraid that, as a Christian, (and, incidentally, a Newcastle supporter) I find Martin Samuel's view of my religion just as weird as that held by Joey Barton- if Barton was correctly reported and was in fact claiming to share my faith .
I think Martin Samuel was trying to be offensive to Christians and others who have a religious faith.
Sorry- he just ended up being adolescent.
I think he should stick to what he knows- or thinks he knows- ie telling the FA how he would run things if he ever had the nerve to accept a proper job.
It would be better if he left writing about spiritual matters to people with a bit more between their ears and a bit more maturity than him.
Sandy Gardner, Riding Mill, Northumberland