I'll prove my worth to United - Barton

Oct 23 2008 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

JOEY Barton has admitted he has not played particularly well for Newcastle United in a 14-month career that has made more front than back page headlines.

But after serving a prison sentence and giving up alcohol, the 26-year-old is determined to make amends for what he calls his “indefensible” behaviour – starting, he hopes, against Sunderland on Saturday.

Barton played 80 minutes for the reserves in midweek, his first football since completing a six-match ban for assaulting his then Manchester City team-mate Ousmane Dabo, and seems set to play some part at the Stadium of Light. As well as his football punishment, Barton received a suspended jail sentence for the training ground incident, committed in May 2007.

It was one of three court charges the Liverpudlian answered last summer, and he concedes his off-the-field problems affected his performances.

Barton was imprisoned for six months for an alcohol-fuelled assault in Liverpool city centre in the early hours of December 27. He served 74 days. The England international was also found not guilty of vandalising a taxi.

In a frank interview, Barton apologised for his misdemeanours and set out how he plans to repay Newcastle for standing by him.

“The last 18 months have been hell,” he said.

“I have been living with a court case over me. If I am brutally honest I knew I was going to jail. Imagine trying to get out of jail and then going back to St James’s Park and getting booed by the fans. I wasn’t playing particularly well. I was overweight. I wasn’t feeling sharp. But somehow I found the strength to come through it.

“I put in a couple of average performances at the end of the season in my own opinion. I did a decent stint for the team and thankfully for me the manager at the time, Mr (Kevin) Keegan, saw that and the way I turned my life around and stopped drinking. I was trying to take on board everything everyone was saying to me but probably in the past I always thought I knew best.”

The £5.8m signing from Eastlands found it particularly hard once the football stopped.

“Just try to imagine for one minute having to try to go on a football pitch and at the end of the season when everyone else is planning to go to Dubai or America and they’re all sitting there thinking about where they will be going on their holiday,” he argued.

“All I was thinking about was going to jail. That was down to my own stupidity. I still have to go onto the pitch and turn in performances but sometimes your head just isn’t clear. But I am not asking for anyone to feel sorry for me by any means.

“I rightly deserve every bit of criticism that was leveled at me. I can’t stand here and try to defend myself because I am indefensible. I am the first to acknowledge that – I am indefensible.”

Keegan persuaded United’s board not to follow the popular mood and sack Barton. Many supporters still feel the same.

“Yes, they have an argument,” he said. “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but thankfully for me the club chose not to do that for whatever reasons. Today all I know is I am an employee of Newcastle United and as soon as I get back on the football pitch I will endeavour to give it my all.

“When I was at Man City I always gave everything I had and the same applies to Newcastle. What I lack in ability and all other things I try to make up for in hard work. That’s all I can do.

“You can’t make everyone happy. I have probably made a lot more people unhappy than a normal person will but hopefully young kids look at the likes of Michael Owen, David Beckham who are unbelievable professionals, who are squeaky clean and they can’t relate to them.

“Hopefully I will be able to reach those people who have unreachable. That’s all I can do. People have reached out for me and tried to help me when I didn’t deserve it.

“Hopefully I can be there and be a role model that I haven’t been before.”

Training ground fights are commonplace in football, though the violence involved in Barton’s attack on Dabo was exceptional. It happens in other sports too, like when the golden boy of English rugby union, Danny Cipriani, was recently embroiled in an altercation with Wasps team-mate Josh Lewsey.

“I have looked at the Cipriani-Lewsey incident and while I don’t know exactly what went on there, what I do know is when sportsmen are in full-contact sports – although rugby is a lot more full-contact than us – tempers do get heated,” Barton said.

“I have seen that throughout my career. At the end of the day it’s well documented but it does take two to tango. People must remember that.

“I am disappointed at myself for the way I reacted but there are lessons to be learned and if I don’t learn those lessons my career will be over.

“My chance will have gone. I have had more chances than anyone deserved.”