Yesterday Joey Barton launched his most vitriolic attack yet on Newcastle United, writes Stuart Rayner

THANKS in no small part to him, it is the dispute which refuses to be silenced. He played for them for another three years, but Joey Barton claims the seeds of his departure from Newcastle United this August began in Walton Prison.

It was Barton’s home for 77 days of 2008 after he was sentenced to six months in prison for assault.

On his release, Barton returned to the Magpies squad and stayed until his acrimonious departure for Queens Park Rangers on a free transfer. Barton claims it was only because the club bungled its attempts to sack him, and from that point on his relationship with “the Ayotallah” – owner Mike Ashley – was irretrievably damaged.

The presenters of Queens Park Rangers’ fan site “Open All R’s” described it as “a podcast not to miss”, but surely even they did not expect the explosiveness to follow. It started with an innocuous question towards what was scheduled to be the end of the broadcast asking “what swung it for Joey to move to QPR?”

Although Newcastle refused to comment, there were plenty of accusations which could keep their lawyers busy. Among the most serious centred around his time in prison.

“A lot of people say to me ‘Newcastle paid your wages when I was in jail’ but they never,” Barton insisted. “I was not paid – not that I wanted to be.

“I was also given a contract from (then-executive director) Dennis Wise saying if I didn’t sign a renegotiated deal, they would sack me.

“(It was) a fifth of the money I was on. I was sitting in a jail cell at the time so I had no real power. As principled as I am I said to my agent at the time, ‘I’ll not sign it, f*** ‘em, I’ll let them sack me, I’m confident I’ll come out of here and get back to the player I was.’ In my opinion, I was getting railroaded into something I didn’t want to do.

“He (Barton’s agent) got a copy of the contract from Wise that he was meant to bring into Walton Prison for me to sign. He took it to his solicitor in London, who put it in a safe. Legally they were bound. They either had to sack me or keep me on the contract I was on. They couldn’t renegotiate.

“Once he phoned them up and told them about the FA’s rules and regulations and the fact he had this contract, they couldn’t then sack me.

“From that moment on a lot of the questions I had for (managing director) Derek Llambias were, ‘Well, hang on, you tried to do this for me when I was having a bad time.’ In my opinion they tried to f*** me when I was at a low time, yet they were demanding loyalty from me three years down the line when I was playing well.

“Derek said, ‘That’s not me, that was Dennis Wise’. At that club Mike Ashley was the Ayotallah – nothing happens without his say-so so in my opinion it came from Mike.”

Since unleashing himself on Twitter earlier this year, Barton has worked hard to paint his own image as a free-thinker, a man of principle and of the people. He has never turned on the fans despite his constant sniping at Ashley (left) and Llambias.

“I really want the club to do well as much as I really don’t like them – because I like the manager and I’ve got a lot of friends at the football club, not only players but members of staff, and I had a great rapport with the fans,” he said.

“The flipside is if Newcastle do well, the people I don’t like are doing well. But there’s more people I like at the club than dislike.

“I’ve got a lot of ill-feeling towards Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias, as have a lot of Newcastle fans but the football club is always going to be bigger than any individual.

“I keep getting told they’re savvy businessmen but dealing with them on a daily basis, which I have, I defy that.”

It was that refusal to bite his tongue which even Barton admits was his undoing on Tyneside.

“I was obviously deemed by the board at Newcastle persona non grata,” he concluded. “They didn’t want me because I asked questions.

“They promised reinvestment of the Andy Carroll money and I was asking where it was. They promised a number of things and delivered on few of them.

“I have to believe in the cause I’m playing for. I couldn’t turn up and just pick my money up. I do it because I want to prove people wrong.

“At Newcastle I couldn’t take to the pitch and lie to the fans and be a part of it. That’s what they were asking us to do. If you fundamentally despise everything the owners stand for it is very, very difficult.

“I am a man of principles, and maybe that’s the reason I’m not at Newcastle. Taking money off fans and taking the p*** out of them is not what I am about.

“I’d rather walk away with my dignity and respect intact and I feel I have done that. Ask any Newcastle fan.”

Gary Speed’s death at the weekend brought back memories of his own acrimonious transfer, to Newcastle from Everton. The Welshman went to his grave refusing to say why he walked out on the club he supported as a boy. Walking away with dignity is generally best done in silence.