Joey Barton refers to Manchester City’s training ground as a place of refuge.
It has been his sanctuary during the many dark days that he has endured in a
young career of remarkable incident.
The cigar-stubbing, the bar-room brawls, the murder case that resulted in his
half-brother being sentenced to 18 years in prison, but as he reflects on a
life less ordinary, Barton’s newfound inner peace is tested only when it is
suggested to him that his amazing story merits a book.
“A book?” he cries. “I’d never write a book unless I’d done something. I’ve
achieved nothing in this game. Nothing. Maybe in time, if I achieve
everything I want and I win trophies, I’ll write a book. But what I have
done in my career? ‘And there was this one season we finished eighth at
Manchester City . . .’ You know what I mean?”
Barton simmers down and smiles. He is an articulate interviewee and an
enthusiastic reader, a Times reader no less, and a lover of
autobiographies — he cites Roy Keane and Sir Clive Woodward as “winners”
whose memoirs he has devoured — but this talk of literature has triggered a
longstanding bugbear about the recent efforts from members of England’s
World Cup squad, which included Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard
and Wayne Rooney.
“I can’t get my head round that,” the 24-year-old says. “England did nothing
in that World Cup, 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?
I don’t. If I’m buying a book, I’ll buy a book about someone who’s won
something, not a book someone’s written for the sake of it because their
agent’s telling them they can cash in on the English public on the back of
the World Cup. I know football is a well-oiled PR machine these days, but
that’s just bulls***. I know these players and I bet some of them didn’t
even want to do books.
“I watched the World Cup and that wasn’t a team for me. You compare it to the
England team that won the rugby World Cup. I might be a million miles off
the mark, but it seemed to be a team of individuals playing for themselves
and not wanting to do the nasty things involved in being a team. OK, some
were prepared to do that, but there were too many people pulling in
different directions.”
Strong words and, given the growing clamour promoting his international claims
after a strong start to the season with City who face Manchester United at
lunchtime today, it is tempting to wonder not whether Barton is ready to
serve his country but whether his country — the aspiring authors in Steve
McClaren’s squad as well as the Middle Englanders who would blanche at the
idea of this self-styled “snotty-nosed kid from Huyton” wearing the Three
Lions — is ready for him.
McClaren is known to be thinking seriously about a call-up for Barton
precisely because of his assertive nature both on and off the pitch.
Certainly, the England head coach would be likely to concur privately with
some of the sentiments expressed above.
Barton shrugs when asked if he feels he should be in the squad — “my priority
is giving my best for Manchester City,” he says repeatedly — but again there
is something he wants to get off his chest, something that should be music
to the ears of McClaren.
“People might think I’m not good enough to play for my country — and I might
not be — but if I do get in the squad, I’ll want to play. The way I see it,
there’s players in that squad who are happy just to be part of a 26-man
squad. That’s no good for the ones who are playing.
“Touch wood, if I was picked for England, I wouldn’t just want to make the
numbers up. I wouldn’t be saying, ‘I’m in the squad. Look at all these top
players I’m with.’ I’d be going there and rattling some cages and wanting to
take someone’s place. I might never make it, but if I don’t, it won’t be for
lack of trying.”
That much is beyond dispute. Barton’s is a tale of battling against adversity,
from his release by Everton at 14 because he was too small, to the numerous
times he has been written off on account of his off-the-field indiscretions.
As he sees it, it is not a series of battles but one long battle that can be
won only through hard work and a determination to learn from his mistakes.
No matter what, though, Barton will remain notorious as the most controversial
user of a cigar (he stubbed one out in the face of Jamie Tandy, a
reserve-team player, at City’s Christmas party in 2004) since Bill Clinton;
as the thug (his word) sent home from the club’s pre-season tour to Thailand
for brawling with a teenage Everton fan in a hotel bar; as the “greedy
bastard” (copyright City’s supporters last January) who requested a transfer
in the midst of a contract dispute; and, most painfully, as the brother and
cousin of the two men jailed for the murder of Anthony Walker, the black
teenager, on the streets of Merseyside last year.
Michael Barton and Paul Taylor are 12 months into their respective minimum
18-year and 23-year prison sentences, but they will walk free one day,
whereas Walker’s family, Barton admits, “will be for ever grieving. I
remember seeing him as a kid, you know, because it was a predominantly white
area. There weren’t many black families around. It’s a terrible tragedy for
their family. They’ll never get their Anthony back and someone had to pay.
That was only right.”
The Walker family’s plight is one that he is not comfortable discussing. Nor
is the remorse, or otherwise, of his brother. “I haven’t been to see him,
no,” Barton says. “It would be difficult. He’s phoned me a few times. It’s
tough, you know, because everyone makes mistakes. But I don’t know at what
level they’ve come down to remorse. I’ve never gone into that.”
For Barton and his family, horror and shame were not the only emotions to come
from the death of Walker. “When I was young, my Uncle Joe — my dad’s
sister’s husband — went out one night and was murdered and his killers got
away with it,” he says. “Anthony’s murder brought back a lot of emotions for
the family, emotions that had probably lain dormant for a lot of years. Our
family knew how Anthony’s family felt because they’d been through a similar
trauma.”
It is not Barton’s wish to paint himself or his family as victims in this
tragedy, but for a time the emotions became too much. “I actually broke down
and said, ‘I don’t want to play no more. It’s ruining my life.’ I’d already
been hung, drawn and quartered for what I’d done in Thailand, but then
everything that went on afterwards, which wasn’t anything to do with me,
just dragged me through it again.
“In the papers, it wasn’t ‘Michael Barton’. It was ‘Joey Barton’s brother’. I
was going on the telly, pleading for them to come home because at that point
they were still on the run. At the same time I was coming into training to
apologise to the players for letting them down in Thailand and I was
standing in front of them, black lads some of them, thinking, ‘Do they think
I’m racist?’ But they were brilliant. One player at another club said
something totally uncalled for — a white player, I’m not going to name him —
but everyone else has been incredibly supportive. I don’t know how I got
through it. I don’t know how I’m sitting here today. I’m a believer in fate.
Things happen for a reason. If it hadn’t been for the mistakes I’ve made and
everything I’ve been through, I wouldn’t have had to take a step back and I
wouldn’t be the man I am now.”
He said something similar after the cigar incident, but it seems that Barton
has learnt his lesson this time. “I’m settled now,” he says. “I’m still a
million miles from where I want to be as a player and as a person, but I’m
trying to improve every day.”
As evidence of the latter, he talks in glowing terms about his sessions with
the Sporting Chance clinic and a recent meeting with underprivileged
children in Cumbria. “I hadn’t given them nothing, only my time, but I left
with butterflies in my stomach because I knew how much those kids got out of
it,” he said. “It’s what they say about giving something back.”
It is as a player, though, that Barton’s thirst for self-improvement is most
obvious. “I went to Dubai in the summer and I’d go running at 6 every
morning,” he says. “It was 30 degrees and I’d be out with a jumper on and my
socks pulled up. I said to myself, ‘Will [Steven] Gerrard and [Frank]
Lampard and the others in the England squad be out doing this now? Will they
be up at 6, going running, going back to bed for an hour and then going to
the gym?’ Some of them might have been.But if they’re not, it means I’ll be
getting closer to them.
“It’s the same way I come into training every day. Training finishes and I do
shooting practice. Then I’ll finish this interview and I’ll go and do my
weights. No one else is here. But I know I need to do that to get me a tiny
bit closer to being a better player. And the closer I get to being a better
player, the closer I get to being the person I want to be.”
And then, perhaps, he can think about doing that book.
Life and crimes
Sept 2, 1982 Born in Huyton, Merseyside
Nov 2002 Denied senior debut as substitute away to
Middlesbrough because shirt has gone missing. Makes debut against Bolton
five months later
July 2003 Arrested after crashing car through window of car
showroom in Coppull, Lancashire. Fined £400
Feb 2004 Sent off at half-time in FA Cup tie against
Tottenham Hotspur. City, 3-0 down at that point, win 4-3
April 2004 Walks out of stadium after being dropped for match
against Southampton. Lambasted by Kevin Keegan, the manager at the time
Dec 2004 Stubs lit cigar in face of Jamie Tandy, a
reserve-team player, at City’s Christmas party. Fined four weeks’ wages
(about £60,000).
May 2005 Breaks leg of pedestrian driving in Liverpool city
centre at 2am
July 2005 Sent home from pre-season tour to Thailand after
altercation with Everton fan in hotel bar. Fined eight weeks’ wages (about
£120,000) in all
Nov 2005 Called as witness in Anthony Walker murder trial.
Half-brother Michael and cousin Paul Taylor found guilty
Jan 2006 Requests transfer after contract dispute. Jeered by
fans but signs four-year contract in July
Oct 2006 Fined £2,000 by FA after baring his backside on pitch
