“It is not an excuse for me to say, ‘Oh, I had it rough, I had it this, I had it that. I never. The reality of it is I was fucking stupid. There are no two ways about it”

Exclusive interview with Joey Barton, by Dan Davies

Photography Dan Burn-Forti Style — DRESS SHOES ITS D GUTTERCRE

Words by Dan Davies — Photograpy by Andy Barter 135 Joey Barton “Stop booing him”

shouts the middle-aged woman sitting father, Joey Snr, was a physically behind me at Fulham’s Craven Cottage commanding man who was the life ground. It’s a cold night in early and soul of the party when he’d had a February and Joey Barton, Newcastle pint. He was also a decent footballer, United’s number seven, is getting the although little of the extra 35 quid a bird from the home crowd. It’s week he earned playing as a striker for something he experiences at pretty non-league Knowlsey United, much every stadium he visits these Warrington Town and Northwich days. As he jogs towards the touchline Victoria on a Saturday survived until to take a throw-in, Barton smiles at Sunday morning. Joey Snr worked as those in the enclosure of the Eric a roofer and had married young, Miller Stand aiming less than savoury meeting Rita when they were both 19. hand gestures in his direction. The Little Joey was born two weeks before same woman is more vociferous in her his father turned 21, and his twin disapproval: “Why are they booing brothers, Michael and Andrew, him?” she complains to her neighbour. arrived just under four years later. “What’s he ever done?” The short Money was tight and discipline answer to her question might be: lax in the family’s Thirties semi- “Where do you want to begin?” detached on Boundary Road, It’s unusual enough to hear fans of although Joey Snr drew the line at PLAYING TO THE one football club sticking up for a Barton jabbing a lit cigar into the eye CROWD: BARTON visits from Rita’s brothers who were player from another, let alone one of his tormentor. He was fined six APPLAUDS THE known locally as being bad news. “It with arguably the most notorious rap weeks’ wages, suspended for two weeks NEWCASTLE caused a split — a division — in the UNITED AWAY sheet in English football. For those and, not surprisingly, denounced in SUPPORT AT family,” Joey says now of one of his unfamiliar with the back- and front- the papers as a mindless thug. FULHAM’S CRAVEN father’s only ground rules. When the page stories given over to Joey In May 2005, Barton was again in COTTAGE, boys were very young, their uncle FOLLOWING THEIR Barton’s myriad misdemeanours, a the news, this time for breaking the leg was murdered. In 2005, in an MATCH ON 2 brief (although by necessity not that of a pedestrian while driving through FEBRUARY 2011 unconnected incident, an uncle on brief) primer is probably in order. Liverpool at two o’clock in the their mother’s side was beaten In July 2003, the then 20-year-old morning. On the club’s close-season unconscious and left in a pool of blood Scouse midfielder had only recently tour of Thailand that summer, a on a betting shop floor. Two years ago, broken into the Manchester City first combination of alcohol and a quick two of his cousins, Kevin Corke and team when he first made headlines temper led to an exchange with a Carl Taylor, were jailed for stabbing for his off-field activities: he was 15-year-old Everton fan in the hotel a man to death. convicted of ploughing a Peugeot bar turning nasty. Barton ended up Huyton was a tough, deprived 405 through the window of a car brawling with Richard Dunne, his area that was, and still is, beset by showroom and leaving the scene club captain, who had been trying to high unemployment, failing schools without reporting the accident. He was pull him away. Dunne was left crying and depressing crime statistics. In arrested later the same night taking a tears of frustration while Barton was 2007, it was named as one of Britain’s taxi from a nightclub. Over the next 12 sent home in disgrace, fined £120,000 10 worst places to live, although months, he established a reputation for gross misconduct and ordered by Barton is adamant this had little to do as an energetic, tough-tackling and the club chairman to seek professional with the mistakes he’s made: “Some skilful presence in a mediocre City help for anger management. good people come from there. It’s not side, but was also infamous for his Wary of the tabloid press pack that an excuse for me to say, ‘Oh, I had it short fuse. Manager Kevin Keegan would be waiting for him at the rough, I had it this, I had it that’. I never. had already rebuked Barton for airport, Stuart Pearce, who was by The reality of it is I was fucking stupid. storming out of Maine Road after then City’s manager, agreed Barton There are no two ways about it.” being told he’d been dropped from the should be sent on a less than direct Joey has likened the group of starting 11, when Keegan was route back to England. The elongated friends he hung out with as a “pack of compelled to read the riot act again journey gave him plenty of time to stray dogs”. To them, he was known as after Barton sparked a mass brawl in think and, by the time he got back to “Danger Mouse”, mainly for his a friendly against Doncaster. his house, he was jet-lagged and filled fearless attitude when it came to In December 2004, Barton with self-loathing. But if he thought either jumping off a roof or crashing achieved genuine tabloid notoriety. that things couldn’t get any worse, he into a tackle on the football pitch. The City players’ Christmas party was hadn’t figured on the phone call he They played football wherever they an inevitably drunken, fancy dress was about to receive. It came from his could and Joey learned to stand up for affair that saw Joey arrive at the younger brother Andrew and told of himself, something his father was Lowry Hotel attired as Jimmy Savile. almost unimaginable horror. prepared to do when the situation > An initially high-spirited exchange required. Indeed, one of Joey’s with a younger player he had known JOEY BARTON was born in Huyton, abiding childhood memories is of since his teens spiralled out of control a tough suburb on the eastern edge of coming home in tears after an older and ended in shocking violence with Liverpool, in September 1982. His boy had taken one of his toys from

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2 Fight club 1)HEADER Jamie Tandy, onceTO an GO up-and-coming HERE Manchester City player, after Barton stubbed out a cigar in his eye at a Christmas party in 2004. He suffered what his lawyers called “a major psychiatric deterioration”, and was dropped by City six months later 2) Tandy, during his playing days, the year before 3) Barton, then 25, is captured on CCTV in Liverpool on 27 December 2007 in a brawl in which he punched a man 20 times and left a 16-year-old boy with broken teeth 4) Barton arrives at Trafford Magistrates Court on 9 August 2007. Later that day he would plead not guilty of attacking his former Manchester City team-mate Ousmane Dabo in a training ground fight 5) French midfielder Dabo with the injuries he sustained in the affray with Barton

3

5

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him. Joey Snr reached behind the memories of lying on a bed, listening to discussion with his team-mate Sol fridge and handed his son a rounders The Smiths on Tom’s stereo. Campbell and the club’s goalkeeping bat with the instruction to sort it out With this new stability and routine, coach, Andy “Woody” Woodman. for himself. On another occasion, not even the heartbreak of being This, it transpires, is one of their when Joey had badly gashed his arm released by the club he’d supported as regular haunts for a spot of post- climbing over railings to retrieve a a boy (the youth team was disbanded, training lunch. Smaller than he looks ball, his father insisted on removing plus his coaches worried his slight on television and casually dressed in the resulting 16 stitches himself. build would mean he’d struggle to jeans and an Arcade Fire T-shirt, Football was Joey Snr’s passion make the grade) could derail Joey for when he leans back and puts his — he’d buy his sons boots and take his long. Manchester City snapped him hands behind his head, an angry scar eldest boy to sit in the Park End at up, and he went on to pass 10 GCSEs. reveals itself on the inside of Barton’s Goodison Park. The game quickly Back on the St John’s Estate, Michael right bicep: the legacy of those railings became the most important thing in was struggling at school and getting and his father’s amateur suturing. little Joey’s life, and by the age of eight into the sort of trouble that Joey’s Campbell wears his now familiar he was joining in training sessions single-minded focus on football had expression of knowing detachment as with his father’s teams. Despite his helped him avoid. As time passed, the discussion centres on the morning’s size, he went on to excel in the Joey saw less of his mother and the training session and last night’s 1–0 competitive junior leagues that had twins, although he had fewer concerns defeat. Woody then recounts details spawned such combative, singular about Andrew of whom he says, from the team’s recent bonding trip to midfielders as Peter Reid and, more “always had his head screwed on.” Portugal, remarking that he was recently, Steven Gerrard. Skilful, Some years later, after he had pleasantly surprised to observe how tenacious and preternaturally established himself as a rising star in Barton was still able to enjoy himself determined to give as good as he got, Kevin Keegan’s Manchester City and be a focal point for the party while Joey Barton Jnr’s performances for St team, Joey was warned by a friend remaining sober. Barton is obviously pleased by this and embarks on an articulate and frank assessment of where he’s at in his life. One of the first “By the age of eight he was things you learn about the new Joey Barton is that he doesn’t need anyone to make excuses on his behalf. This is for the simple reason that he refuses joining in training with to make any for himself. In these media-trained times of anodyne, monosyllabic post-match sound bites Barton’s forthright opinions and his father’s teams” willingness to swim against the tide have marked him out almost as much Anne’s Rovers (along with Whiston that Michael was in danger of getting as his well-publicised falls from grace. Juniors, one of the top clubs in the into trouble so deep that he might At Manchester City, he repaid the Huyton area) quickly brought him to never come out. He offered his younger club’s loyalty following his extensively the attention of Everton’s scouts. brother an escape route from the documented infractions by explaining When he was 14 and still enrolled distractions of the estate, the same to the press why he felt he was worth in Everton’s Academy, Joey’s parents temptations that had led so many of a more lucrative contract. It hardly split up. He went to live with his father, his own childhood friends down the endeared him to the fans. Not long who moved in with his own mother, wrong path. Michael moved in with afterwards, Barton responded to a Julia, Joey’s Nan, a mile or two up the Joey for a while, but the pull of his disappointing City defeat by suggesting road. His younger twin brothers stayed old life proved too strong and his that, as a fan, he wouldn’t pay to with Rita on the St John’s Estate. His occasional forays back to St John’s watch the lack of effort displayed life improved in the more disciplined became more frequent. by some of his “sub-standard” environment provided by his nan. They team-mates. In 2006, after England’s had always enjoyed a special bond and IT IS the afternoon after the Fulham players had returned from a limp now, with his aunt and her husband game, and the Joey Barton I meet in a World Cup display in Germany, living a couple of doors down, and his fashionable delicatessen in Jesmond, Barton questioned how certain senior uncle Tom under the same roof, the an upmarket district of Newcastle, players could bring themselves to cash boy was in a better place. bears little resemblance to the in with autobiographies — quotes that Tom was the youngest of his drunken lout demonised in so many required some explaining when he father’s four siblings. In his mid- tabloid stories. Instead of clenched won his first and only call-up weeks twenties at the time, he was unlike the fists and features contorted in rage, later. As recently as two years ago, he others in his family: cool, mysterious I find a contented 28-year-old who is remarked that most Premiership and meticulous, especially when it now being spoken of more in terms of footballers were “knobs” and “so came to clothes. Joey came to regard a likely England call-up (he won his detached from real life it’s untrue”. His him as the big brother he’d never had, only previous cap coming on as a comments were broadcast on an even more so after Joey Snr began a substitute in a 2007 friendly against episode of Radio 4’s Today Programme new relationship and moved out a few Spain) than for his violent outbursts guest produced by Tony Adams, the months later. Tom ignited his nephew’s and appetite for self-destruction. former Arsenal and England defender. passion for music, and Joey has fond When I arrive, he is in animated On this occasion, however, the

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1 2 conversation meanders through less on his mobile but Joey dismissed controversial territory: tales of how he them. When they finally talked he said used to bunk over the wall to watch the he had no interest in finding out what racing at Chester (at which point, he Sporting Chance had to offer, excuses himself in order to nip to the reckoning it to be a One Flew Over bookmaker’s to see how one of his The Cuckoo’s Nest-style retreat for own horses has fared in a race in wackos — people with problems he Dubai) and the flawed system for the didn’t have. Kay suggested he try a development of young players within week at the clinic and, in the midst of English professional football. his family’s involvement in a high- By the time Campbell gets up to profile murder and the disgrace of say goodbye, it’s dark outside. Woody his expulsion from the squad, a follows not long afterwards, but Joey temporary sanctuary suddenly looked is only starting to warm to his task. We 3 like the best option open to him. talk extensively about his family and “I didn’t want to go,” Barton his upbringing in Huyton and he tells readily admits. Initially, he says, he me how proud he is of the man he’s kept himself to himself, looking down become. He celebrated last year’s his nose at the other residents of promotion from the Championship Crouch House, the clinic’s HQ in over a pot of tea with the Newcastle Hampshire. Gradually, though, as he striker Alan Smith while all around attended group sessions, he began to them the room was being doused in see how his own issues related to those champagne. “Smudge has never had a of the people around him. His drink in his life,” Barton says, shaking week-long residency at Sporting his head in wonder. “I figured that Chance ended with a trip to an must have had something to do with a Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at bad experience when he was younger, Family affairs World’s End in Chelsea. but it wasn’t that at all. He’s just never 4 At first, Joey protested tried alcohol. I find that amazing.” 1) Anthony Walker, the about going inside but a 18-year-old who was gut instinct changed his ANDREW BARTON was phoning to murdered in 2005 2) mind. He sat at the back tell Joey there had been a murder on Michael Barton, Joey’s and listened, and the penny the St John’s Estate. Anthony Walker, brother, was found guilty dropped. “I came out a black student, had been found with a of Walker’s murder along with that same nervous mountaineering axe in his head on an with cousin Paul Taylor excitement in my stomach area of open ground known locally as 3) A Kent Police CCTV still that I feel before a game,” the flower garden. He had been racially showing Michael Barton he recalls. “Afterwards, in abused, chased and slaughtered. and Taylor in Dover, the car on the way to the fleeing the UK 4) Joey Andrew said that Michael, his twin airport, I turned to Peter Barton’s cousin Nadine brother, and Paul Taylor, a cousin on and said, ‘Do you think Wilson and brother their mother’s side, were the prime I’m an alcoholic?’ He said to Andrew outside Liverpool suspects, and the pair had vanished. me, ‘Only you can answer Crown Court. They Over the next 24 hours, the phone that question.’” received suspended rarely stopped ringing. Officials at Man It was shortly after sentences for their part City, not knowing what was going on, this that I first met Joey in an assault in 2007 wanted Joey to apologise to his Barton. Sporting Chance team-mates for his behavior in had arranged a fund-raising Thailand and seek help for his temper. fishing event that saw Frantic conversations were also going well-known football figures on with Michael, who was asking for ingrained. We pay up and go outside to standing around two small man-made money. When Joey tried calling his his car. Back at his house, I stand in the ponds on a grey day in the north. Peter brother the ringtone confirmed what generously appointed kitchen chatting Kay arrived with Barton, looking the family suspected: he’d fled to Georgia, his girlfriend, about the chastened, in tow. I recall Tony overseas. Joey went to the police. Two couple’s two dogs while Joey sits in the Adams’ all-white ensemble being days later, he was on the news again, hallway talking to Peter Kay, who set uniquely unsuited to the requirements this time expressing his shock and up the Sporting Chance Clinic with of match angling, and Joey Barton’s sorrow at Walker’s death and urging Tony Adams. Kay has become Barton’s readiness to talk. Michael to give himself up. His father’s friend and mentor, equipping him In November 2005, Michael side of the family decamped to his with the tools to arrest what looked to Barton and his cousin Paul Taylor house, but amid the anguish and be an inexorable slide into oblivion. were sentenced to 17 years and 23 years recriminations Joey found he couldn’t Over lunch, Joey had explained respectively for Britain’s most give vent to what he was feeling inside. how he met Kay in that fateful week notorious racist murder since Stephen Barton tells me he has become after his return from Thailand and Lawrence was stabbed at a bus stop in fascinated with human behaviour: the death of Anthony Walker. An 1993. On the night the judge handed how character traits are formed and alcoholic and former drug user turned down his verdict, Joey Barton why behavioural patterns become counsellor, Kay had left two messages attended a fund-raising event for

139 Joey Barton autistic children. the same thing time and time again I knew from school.” He says it made but expecting a different result every the transition easier — “That and the IN MARCH 2007, Barton was arrested time. It was basically insane.” fact I never went in with a big attitude, on suspicion of assault and criminal I ask him what was making him so like, ‘Fucking hell, I play football so damage in an incident involving a taxi unhappy, triggering this destructive I shouldn’t be in here with you.’” driver, which he denied and was later cycle. “I think it was my struggle with As a millionaire Premiership cleared of. While still on bail, a training perfection,” he replies. “Nothing was footballer with a big reputation, he ground flare-up with his team-mate ever good enough. I’d try setting new was nevertheless an obvious target. “It Ousmane Dabo resulted in the French goals but the slog, the never being happened,” he confirms, “but no one midfield player slapping Barton and content, was basically consuming me. really got in my face. People test you, being punched to the floor, rendered Football is such a fickle game; one that’s human nature. When a new kid unconscious and hospitalised. Barton minute, people are saying you’re comes into school people test them, was suspended for the rest of the brilliant and the next minute they tell and obviously I was in that sort of season. That summer, he transferred you you’re shit. It’s not a normal environment. If I’d had to, I would to Newcastle United for £5.8m. environment; it gets you down. Inside have defended myself, but it never In August, he appeared in court to the game you see people who really came to that. The reality was when answer a charge of assault on Dabo struggle with it. It consumes them, people met me they were like, before hitting rock bottom in the which is why I think so many ex-pros ‘Actually, he’s an alright lad who’s early hours of 27 December on are so bitter and twisted. I had a phase fucked up like the rest of us.’” a pedestrianised shopping street in where I didn’t want to know anyone, Barton likens the experience to Liverpool city centre. And rock bottom was not the only thing he hit, as the shocking CCTV footage attests. After consuming 10 pints and five “It was like an out- bottles of lager, Barton got into an argument with a youth outside a McDonalds, and landed more than 20 unanswered punches before turning of-body experience... on a bystander, breaking his teeth. He was arrested and remanded in custody. “When I woke up in the cell I was thinking, ‘What the fuck’s gone I wasn’t in control” on?’ I had a grasp of what had happened but I was still hazy. I was I didn’t want to be anyone’s friend. “looking into a void”. For the first few like, ‘What set me off there?’ I was I wanted to be alone. I wanted to do days in jail he wrestled with whether to feeling like shit because I was this on my own — me against the world. return to football when he got out. “I sat hungover and can remember Now I’m like, ‘What the fuck was there and thought, ‘I’ve had enough. thinking, ‘What am I going to say to I thinking?’ I just went into myself. It I don’t need this shit any more.” He the gaffer?’ Bit-by-bit it’s come back to suited me, I knew I could respond to it even contemplated a new life abroad me. They showed me the CCTV and and if anyone said anything I could where nobody knew him, but thought I was looking at it thinking, ‘I don’t go, ‘Fuck you, I’ll do it my way.’ My better of it: “That’s the coward’s way; even remember doing that.’ To tell you vulnerability shut me down a bit.” once you start running you never stop. the truth, it put the fear of God into The six days Barton spent on You’ve got to lift your head up and face me; it was almost like an out-of-body remand provided a stark reality check, up to what you’ve done.” experience. I was aware something although the following seven months Against all odds, his attitude had gone on but I wasn’t in control. proved to be the hardest of his life. He changed. “The way I was looking at it I could have fucking killed him.” now describes the period as being the was, for some reason I’m here. This is Binge drinking had become his culmination of six years of increasing my path and whatever decisions I’ve pressure valve. “I never experimented disillusionment. When he came off made in my life I have to take the most with drugs because it would have remand, he went straight back to out of this.” He attended AA meetings finished my football career. Alcohol playing in the Premier League. At first and was transferred to Strangeways was a legal drug. I’d get out of my brain he struggled for form but managed to in Manchester, during which time he and think I was invisible. I thought play on to the end of the season. “Most received a four-month suspended I was getting away with stuff and no of the lads were talking about where sentence for the assault on Dabo. More one could see me, but I would be they were going on holidays. I knew significantly, he realised he was not ending up in stupid situations at I was going to jail — my lawyer told me down and out after all. “Some people stupid o’clock in the morning. Nine there was no two ways about it, plus had nothing at all. When you talked to times out of 10 I would be OK, but on the media were demanding it. What them they were either heroin addicts or the odd times trouble would find me, I didn’t know was how long for.” had nobody come visit them in years.” or I’d find trouble. I would get into In May 2006, he found out: he Barton was released after 74 days. trouble, stop drinking for a bit and received a six-month sentence after Kevin Keegan, the manager he’d then the pressure would build up and pleading guilty to common assault and endured a rocky relationship with at I’d go back to drinking. I was an affray. The first month was spent in Manchester City, offered him a fresh all-or-nothing drinker. I could leave it Liverpool’s Walton Prison, surrounded start with Newcastle. He was booed for six months but when I had a drink by familiar faces: “I knew a lot of people loudly when he made his first I would drink to oblivion. I was doing in there — friends of friends, or people appearance, as a substitute away to

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particularly his father. “He was more like a mate than a dad. He never taught me how to be a man; he never gave me the tools. I only realised later it’s like a line of dominoes. My grandad was never taught to express his emotions, other than not to show any sign of weakness, and that was passed down to my dad. Only now do I know I can stop this domino effect. Everyone’s walking one way but I’ve got the chance to say, ‘Stop, let’s walk the other way.’ That’s where I’m at now.” He has talked about this a lot with Andrew, who he remains close to and says is doing well. His nan remains the most important female influence in his life, while Tom is still the arbiter of musical taste, even if they agree to disagree over Vampire Weekend. He doesn’t see his mother much, and hasn’t seen Michael in two years. “We’d all love to go back and make things a bit better,” he admits when I ask him if he has any regrets. “But the fact is I can’t. Obviously I have got my regrets, but to say I regret some of it would detract from who I am today. The man sitting in front of you is trying to be as honest as he can. I look back now to the lad who went in jail and I think, ‘How the fuck did I get from there to here?’ If you said this is what you’ll be doing in three years’ time, I’d have said you were insane.” He now avoids the type of scenarios that have resulted in him being a target for the boo boys and the tabloid press,not to mention being ON THE UP: Arsenal. The FA greeted his return Against Arsenal he sparked the NOW TEE-TOTAL denied entry to a Vampire Weekend with a 12-match ban, with six matches fight-back that earned Newcastle a JOEY BARTON concert in Liverpool because the suspended, for the assault on Dabo. draw from being four goals down, first HOPES HE HAS PUT venue said they were not insured HIS TURBULENT by staying cool when Abou Diaby DAYS BEHIND HIM against him causing trouble. (He is JOEY BARTON has not had a drink grabbed him by the throat, then by now friendly with the band and their since the early hours of 27 December scoring twice from the spot once the manager, who has since taken a keen 2007. He is also very different to the opposition were reduced to 10 men. interest in him.) Although he would bloke you might think he is. He says For all the changes he’s made in his rather not be a poster boy for bad he is learning to deal with his own life, he remains refreshingly incapable behaviour, he says he is grateful to the perfectionism and trying to master the of ducking difficult questions. I ask him media for publicly underlining the art of avoiding confrontation — or at when he last let anger slip into rage. He error of his ways. least ensuring it doesn’t escalate. That rubs his jaw and thinks for a moment. That Barton is a different man said, he’s still prone to blowing a gasket “It’s been a long, long time. I’d say it today stems from one key decision: to from time to time — like the dressing was the Dabo incident. I threw three stop drinking. It was a decision he room tirade at caretaker manager Alan punches; the first was self-defence says was taken for no other reason Shearer after he was sent off against because he struck me first. The other than his legacy. “Not as a footballer Liverpool in Newcastle’s doomed two were rage because I carried on but as a person,” he adds by way of relegation fight in 2009. Or the hitting him. Where I’m from, there are qualification. “I want to be a good role instinctive punch to Morten Gamst no rules in a fight. If I raise my hand to model and, one day, a good father to Pederson’s chest last November. hit you and you hit me back that’s par my children. Being a man is not just Having played a part in Newcastle’s for the course. What I know now is the about standing up for yourself and return to the top flight, Barton has been most powerful thing to do is walk away. saying, ‘I’m a fucking man.’ Being a the club’s outstanding player this Then, you take away all their energy.” man is how you deal with things; how season. He tries to operate within a Joey admits to feeling resentment you give your kids the tools that I’ve narrower emotional range, something towards his parents for a while, but by now got without them making the which has made him a happier person understanding himself he has come to mistakes I made. Obviously they’ll and a more effective footballer.” a better understanding of them, fuck up, but that’s human nature.”

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