“Uninitiated, young men will burn down the village just to feel its warmth.” African proverb

Recently, Joey Barton was involved in what the newspapers called “yet another chapter in the misdemeanours of the troubled young man”. “How many more chances are we to offer him?” they asked as “experts” were brought in to fathom the Manchester City midfield player’s thought processes. One article even desecrated his whole family.

I was left wondering if they were debating the life of the same young man that I had been working with for the past 20 months. I am told that this is the price one pays for being a professional footballer, castigated without recourse, labelled and condemned, your family as well.

Football is a strange sport, which has a strange way of preparing young men for the pressures that being exposed to the limelight in a professional career entail. It tells those with often limited education that they are great. Their families tell them the same thing and their friends believe it because everyone else has been saying it.

They are put through the academy system, after which their services are either dispensed with in a short, blunt conversation, or they are handed the club blazer, the keys to a sponsored car and a contract that will earn them thousands of pounds per week. Then, as they leave the office, they are reminded: “By the way, you’re a role model now.”

Some young men receive superb mentoring from academy directors and coaches, others from their own families, or, when they embark on their professional career, from their managers. This helps them define their own moral codes. Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, for example, is a master of initiating young men into maturity.

But not all managers have the experience and natural aptitude of Ferguson, while not all young men respond to this mentoring.

In the world of testosterone-charged adolescents, one of the qualities needed is the will to win. That comes from an anger from within. Whether it’s tennis or tiddlywinks, winning is everything.

If the role models have not been there during this time, how can we expect these young men to change patterns of behaviour that have worked for them for so long within a nanosecond of them signing professional papers?

We seem to think we can sprinkle magic dust on them that enables them to think of others, do the right thing, be humble and become emotionally articulate, yet since reaching puberty they have found out that displaying any of those characteristics is deemed “weak” and, therefore, unacceptable.

Sporting Chance Clinic was started by another once errant young man called Tony Adams in 2000. Three years earlier, the Arsenal captain had announced that he was an alcoholic. At first he had to fund the project from his own pocket, which he did willingly until the Professional Footballers’ Association stepped in to provide funds. The FA and FA Premier League have since started to contribute, too.

Adams’s mission was to provide the programmes of treatment, the environment and the expertise that would have helped him at the time of his announcement, when nothing similar was available.

The clinic is fulfilling Adams’s dream on a daily basis.

It was here in the autumn of 2005 that a 23-year-old Barton embarked on a seven-day programme of behavioural management, “anger management” as the experts in the media would have it. Contrary to general belief, he has continued the work since.

My relationship with Joey started then and there has not been a week that has passed since in which we haven’t “checked in” with each other, discussed our working days or chatted about some event or other, he seeking my counsel on a particular matter, or me seeking his.

We have spent time at his house, at mine, on the golf course, in a restaurant or perhaps on one of the several visits he has joined me on to a school or remand centre. So I look at Joey with respect and honour him for how far he has come in 20 months. Since his week-long residential stay at Sporting Chance, Joey has matured into a man of huge quality, integrity and sensitivity.

He embarked on the programme we set up for him with total commitment. He attended an open meeting of a self-help group when he did not need to because he is not an “alcoholic”. He was deeply moved by what he heard. In 20 months he has drunk alcohol only on two occasions, feeling that his career and ambitions need total commitment. He had become aware that he had choices.

He had a little episode in front of the FA disciplinary committee for baring his bottom at a group of Everton fans but he accepted the fine, apologising for his behaviour and thanking the committee for a fair hearing.

He was then supposedly involved in an altercation in a taxi, where he allegedly caused damage to a glass partition, but no evidence of this was found. Joey walked away from the situation. He was stone cold sober.

The recent training-ground incident is a continuing legal issue.

Joey is a pretty honest and straightforward man, as the Times interview in December, when he criticised England players for bringing out books after their poor showing in the World Cup, shows. He sometimes speaks without caring about the possible ramifications, although this is an area he has been looking at improving. His recent declaration that he would not pay to see City play was perhaps ill-timed, with the season-ticket deadline approaching, and his observations regarding several foreign players at the club undoubtedly produced a response.

But Joey is full of pride and passion, gives his all to the team and cares deeply when they are beaten. He boils with frustration and anger when he judges that others are not committing the same energies as he to the cause. He is a human being, not a saint, and makes mistakes. He will probably carry on making mistakes, as most people do in life. But he is more aware now and awareness is integral to what we teach.

However, it seems that whenever Joey “makes a mistake”, his past is relentlessly dredged up, dissected and he is again vilified. This produces an automatic reaction of self-preservation: his defences go up and the monosyllabic responses he gives basically send out the message that he does not want anyone near him. More often than not in these cases, the opposite is true and the person concerned wants to talk about how they’re feeling.

On three occasions, I have witnessed him walk away from situations where he and his family have been abused. We have discussed afterwards how good it felt to do “the mature thing”. Such huge steps forward are not reported by the press.

He has embarked on a relationship in which he has had to show his vulnerability – not something that he was taught to do as a young teenager

At 14, he went to live with his grandmother and without her solid set of values, love and affection, I do not think that Joey would be where he is today. At 15, he was released by Everton. He grew up in Huyton, a learning ground where, if a person raises their hand to hit you, you make sure they do not get the chance – and that they do not get up in the near future.

It takes a pretty strong character to turn that kind of teaching on and off like a tap and react to similar threats by walking away.

For Sporting Chance, he has taken on the responsibility of being patron for The Tamsin Gulvin Fund, which supports people with problems but without the financial wherewithal to get them treated. He attends our annual fly fishing competition, even though he hates fly fishing, to raise funds for the Trust.

He attends schools and remand centres with me to talk about his upbringing, the mistakes he has made and how young people can change the way they do things. We were in Cumbria delivering the last of five sessions in a day and were running late. I had to get him back to Manchester to see the Arctic Monkeys. When I said that we had to go, he refused until those in the group had had a chance to ask questions. He has taken the time to talk with several people who might be “troubled”, and then they have subsequently phoned me for support.

These facts do not appear when the headlines focus on the “errant Barton”.

Getting selected for England was a big day for him. I spoke to him as he was driven to Manchester to join the squad. We talked of everything he had worked for coming to fruition, how the changes in his lifestyle had contributed massively to this day, and we also talked of his fears.

Through being an England squad player he tasted professionalism throughout the whole squad and the set-up. He experienced the food, the preparation, the organisation and the total desire and will to win, from everyone from the head coach to the kit man. He was with like-minded souls. Then three days later it was back to Carrington and although he respected Stuart Pearce, it was light years away from what he had just sampled. You could see the frustration in his demeanour. Joey sets extremely high standards for himself and this is one of the attributes that make him the talent he is; however, it is also his nemesis.

Like any self-respecting street fighter, when he feels threatened or cornered, he resorts back to the behaviour that served him when he was young. Fists up and f*** off! Behaviour ingrained in our make-up take time and effort to change; he is doing the effort bit, he just needs time.

Wherever he ends up playing next season, be it City or another Barclays Premiership club, they will be getting a man of immense personal qualities.

CHANCE TO BE A GOOD SPORT

TONY ADAMS FOUNDED the Sporting Chance clinic in September 2000. In the Nineties, the former Arsenal and England defender was an alcoholic who spent time in prison for drink-driving. He recovered but noticed the lack of an environment dedicated to supporting troubled athletes.

The clinic began working with patients in 2002. It is based in Forest Mere, Hampshire, and has developed into a leading centre for the treatment of behavioural problems among professional sports people.

Aiming to improve mind, body and spirit, it works with the English and Scottish Premier Leagues, the Professional Footballers’ Association and the Scottish Professional Footballers’ Association and runs a variety of programmes, from one-day anger management workshops to a four-week residential course.

Athletes are given a physical examination and a personal trainer implements a special fitness schedule. Mentally, psychotherapy, counselling and sports psychology are offered. The focus is on treating damaging behavioural patterns in every aspect of the athlete’s life.

Sporting Chance also offers a Preventative Education Programme aimed at giving young athletes information and skills that can help them to avoid the traps and negative attitudes that can develop as they progress in the profession.

Footballers treated at Sporting Chance include Matthew Etherington, the West Ham United winger, Adrian Mutu, the former Chelsea striker, and Paul Merson, a former teammate of Adams.

— Tom Dart