No Nonsense

by Joey Barton

  I had other options. Aston Villa and Fulham saw me as a promotion specialist. I was told Steve Bruce wanted me to delay my decision for a week, until Hull City had established their Premier League place. The most intriguing approach came the day before I travelled to Scotland to complete the formalities of my move to Rangers.

  I had just finished a round of golf when I took a call from an agent, who had been contacted by Peter Lawwell, Celtic’s chief executive. The message he conveyed was straight and to the point: ‘Is there anything we can do together? Can we have a conversation?’ To be frank, I respected him for his professionalism. It was a smart move. I sent word back, thanking him for his interest, but confirming my intentions.

  Ultimately, I responded to Rangers as an institution that creates icons and demands warriors. I hinted at my decision that evening, by tweeting the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. Needless to say, the elephant in the room, wearing green and white hoops, began to tap-dance. The usual search of my meanderings on social media inevitably unearthed evidence of childhood affiliations with Celtic. I received a Celtic kit as a present when I was growing up, just as I was given a Blackburn Rovers kit in another phase of my schooldays. I wouldn’t insult the supporters of either club by referring to myself as a fan of their team. The reality is I am an Evertonian, born and bred.

  I’m not daft, though. I knew my arrival would be portrayed as the equivalent of an invitation to tour the firework factory with a flamethrower. Glasgow bookmakers immediately offered odds on me being sent off in my first Old Firm match. They chose to disregard the fact that I am used to playing with a target on my back, and that I had just gone through an arduous season without picking up a suspension.

  Of course, I am mindful of the delicacy of the situation, the unavoidable religious divide between such bitter, perennial rivals. All I ask is to be judged on my actions as a footballer, rather than my philosophical principles as a human being. Playing for Rangers is a phenomenal challenge, but I have never backed down from anything in my life, and do not intend to start doing so now.

  My agnostic principles grow firmer with every day. If you want to go through life with a heightened sense of spiritual awareness, fine. It’s absolutely no issue for me. You have the basic right to a personalised set of beliefs. The problem in disagreeing with someone about religion is that it is too easy to smear and stigmatise.

  A counter-argument is viewed as a deeply personal attack. If I don’t agree with the text of your book I am not anti you. I’m not saying you should be banished, driven out of civilised society. I am merely pointing out the nuances of faith. Doctrine impinges on everyday life in so many small but significant ways. Cassius, for instance, was prevented from going to a certain school in Liverpool because he hasn’t been baptised, which is ludicrous in this day and age.

  Excluding a child because he hasn’t had his head dipped in water is the product of the sort of closed minds to which I don’t want to subject him. Nan didn’t ram her faith down my throat when I was a kid, but I still find it unsettling to visit Liverpool’s Roman Catholic cathedral, the so-called Paddy’s Wigwam, because it arouses uncomfortable memories of enforced attendance for school services, high days and holy days.

  I believe in the power of the alternative view. I may think that Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are the epitome of everything that is wrong with a shallow, materialistic society, but 60 million people quite like what they stand for. It may baffle me, but I am the last person who can afford to be self-righteous.

  I’m always being told that my views won’t have any validity unless I debate them with a theologian. How could I debate sensibly with someone whose belief system is based on a book? I swore on the Bible when I was in court, but it was a reflex action that had nothing to do with uncorroborated stories which are thousands of years old.

  I believe in the longevity of being honest. That might bite me on the arse in the short term, especially when so many are deceitful, but hopefully, over time, people will recognise my virtues. I’ve been violent, and mixed up in all sorts of stuff, so I understand concerns that I’m engaged in a comprehensive charade, but, as John Lennon sang, let’s give peace a chance.

  As much as some may not wish to admit it, the Old Firm clubs are vital to one another. I have never really bought into the Brendan Rodgers brand, but his installation as Celtic manager is a good thing for Scottish football. Standards will rise, since the strength of your adversary forces you to examine every option to be at your best. Make no mistake – I intend to win the Premiership.

  We are building a young team with long-term potential. Frank McParland proved, in his recruitment work at Liverpool, Brentford and Burnley, that he has an outstanding eye for an emerging player. He has a global network of contacts and a modern outlook aligned to the instincts of an old-school scout. He provides the building blocks; the mortar is applied on the training ground.

  My energy is compatible with the challenge because, biologically, I am a lot younger than my 34 years. I am stronger mentally than anyone around, with the possible exception of a Cristiano Ronaldo, whose ability to meet expectations at the highest level is astounding. I can deal with pretty much anything that is thrown at me.

  I completed the final assessment for my UEFA A coaching badge in June. Sean Dyche has told me his door is always open, and Frank, who was the initial influence on my moves to Turf Moor and Ibrox, has already spoken of an organic transition within the development structure at Rangers as a natural progression.

  Welcome to Joey Barton 2.0. Call me Joe for short. He is the product of a lot of research and reflection.

  No one is truly prepared when they go into coaching or management, but if I am not the best at my new vocation – whatever that is – in 20 years, I will have done something seriously wrong. I am already working back from that point, thinking logically, ‘What do I need to succeed?’ The next phase will have a different tone to my playing career, which until recently has been a warped struggle for survival.

  Life is good, rich with opportunity. I know it doesn’t always work out as we intend; I’d be gutted if I didn’t get the chance of an extended career in football, but I am adaptable enough to change course if that’s my fate. I’ve lost the fear that stalked and shaped me as I was making my way in the world. I’m determined to enjoy this new-found sense of serenity.

  I have a viable alternative in media work, but making it as a coach is my priority. I intend to do whatever it takes once I stop playing, and have consciously tried to make the leap of faith as small as possible. Management is a possibility, but coaching is more immediately attractive because it involves dealing with people at an emotional level.

  Football is a reflection of modern society. It is impatient, instant. The component parts, its people, are interchangeable. I’m suited to the most critical aspect of coaching – helping individuals to help themselves – because of the perspective life has given me. I could go down the academic route, and qualify as a sports psychologist, but there is no substitute for being out there on the grass.

  Initially, I will need someone to guide me, to teach me how far, and how fast, boundaries can be pushed. I’ve already studied the proactivity and professionalism of Olympic athletes. They work back from their goals, plan with greater clarity and intelligence. That justifies the pursuit of marginal gains; football is so far behind the curve that such a rigorous philosophy is seen as an affectation at even our biggest clubs. We don’t even do the basics properly.

  Consider something as fundamental as movement. Footballers don’t know how to run correctly. They haven’t a clue. Apart from an occasional dabble in gait analysis, I’ve never seen anyone work systematically on the mechanics of running. That’s amazing in a sport in which you are, by definition, on your feet all the time. Dexterity is so important.

  Look at Lionel Messi, or Eden Hazard in his breakthrough season at Chelsea; their natural fluidity of movement and spacial awareness are fantastic. Zinedine Zidane, th
e best player of his generation, was balletic, effortless. I’m not saying every player would be a better footballer if he did ballet, but at least we should be assessing the possibility.

  Conditioning staff can teach me the technique of lifting weights, but if I can’t run efficiently it doesn’t really matter how strong I am. I rarely see defenders being given technical drills, to enable them to get their feet in the best position to win the ball. I can stand and moan about that, or do something about it.

  As a prospective coach I need to understand how players learn. I would love to sit down with a neurologist, to get an insight into the workings of the brain. How does the skill we refer to as ‘football intelligence’ operate? How important is the home environment? I look at my kids and know they will have elements of character from Georgia and myself, but what sort of impact will our lifestyle have on them?

  My greatest gift was the strength of my mind, forged on the streets, in a rough-and-tumble world. If I had been born with the same footballing ability, but to middle-class parents, I don’t think I would have made it. I would have been a more balanced human being, but I wouldn’t have been able to survive the turbulence of a Premier League career. Aggression gave me the necessary edge.

  My recruitment will be based on the nature of the individual. I’d prefer to work with someone less talented but more open to personal growth, than someone who is very smart but has a closed mind. The latter player has finite usefulness, because either he will soon be bored with you, or you will be bored with him. If someone has a good heart and a good head on his shoulders, there’s not much he can’t learn.

  I am compiling a new file, of discrepancies in my industry. I won’t be afraid to delegate. I already know the sort of people I want in the team around me. Peter Kay would have been in it, because of his lifestyle skills. Steve Black will be in it for the uniqueness of his insight and the breadth of his sporting knowledge. It is tragic to think their perfect partnership will never be realised.

  It excites me when I consider how many people I can reach as a coach. I’d love to work with a young Joe Barton. I see so many players as I was, messed up and struggling to understand themselves. The happy ones, with a good mindset, are easy to deal with. I will come into my own with unhappy kids, from troubled backgrounds. They are the ones you can get a bit extra from, those with whom I identify most closely.

  I can promise them, with complete confidence, that I will make them better. I am a product of a flawed system, a player who was subjected to lazy, results-driven coaching for far too long. I can counsel the kid who is confused, because he is earning 50 times more than his dad without being stretched, or valued, by the club that is paying him a fortune. I was that soldier.

  If I stopped playing tomorrow, what could I deliver? Would I have the maturity to soften certain aspects of my personality? Would I have the credibility to command an audience? Would I be able to toe the party line consistently? Self-belief wouldn’t be an issue, since I am conditioned to backing myself in any situation.

  Thinking rationally, I would have to make huge character adjustments to slot in straight away as a modern manager, who is becoming more of a politically driven, business-oriented CEO. I would need to make only slight character adjustments to learn my trade as a coach. I envisage myself developing into a hybrid figure, a cross between head coach and manager.

  Titles are ultimately irrelevant, since it is the quality of your work that counts. Essentially, I’ve already acted as a surrogate manager at QPR, where I showed the requisite adaptability and an aptitude for leadership in difficult circumstances. I am prepared to do a proper apprenticeship.

  I’ve already mentioned I’d love to work with Jose Mourinho. Someone of his status fits the NFL model, of a head coach being a mentor to younger coaches across his organisation. Football’s approach is unstructured, higgledy-piggledy. Players learn certain aspects of management through experience but most fail to make the transition because the process is so haphazard.

  Rather than taking time to examine an individual’s managerial potential, too many chairmen and owners just say, ‘Fuck it. He’s got a big reputation; the media will love us. Let’s throw him at the problem.’ Such lazy thinking disregards the reality that a former player is starting a new career. That, surely, entails starting at the bottom.

  Football struggles to find the reset button. Gary Neville fails at Valencia, and suddenly he is shit. Well, hang on a minute. Let’s think logically. He went in above his head because people got inside his head. Everyone convinced him he was brilliant, so he took a mad leap of faith. He was told he could fly, so he jumped off the top of the building and was splattered all over the pavement.

  Everyone assumed Gary would be successful because he played for Manchester United, a dominant club, and for the most controlling, powerful manager of the past 50 years. Top players have such a narrow spectrum of experience. Gary has more chance than most, since he is open-minded, strong-willed and analytical, but in general terms they can’t do anything other than struggle to adapt to coaching or management, initially at least. Their formative years have been too sheltered.

  I’ve played for a weird and wonderful array of people, and for a distinctive range of football clubs in a variety of competitive situations. That background gives me a better chance of excelling in the next phase of my career. I’m fully aware I won’t know whether I am capable of flying until I make that leap, but before I do so I am going to be as well prepared as possible.

  I have always thought like a coach, as a player. To give an example, I was forced to play out of position, on the right side of midfield, at Newcastle. Danny Simpson was behind me, a great lad who, at that stage of his career, was never going to get outside me. I studied opposition left backs to work out how they wouldn’t want me to play against them.

  If I tried to run them, players of the quality of Ashley Cole or Patrice Evra would beat me because they were quicker. I lacked a trick to get past them, but if I got a yard and whipped a ball in I had really good delivery. Simmo was a little nervous from time to time but I just gave him very, very simple instructions.

  If you pick the ball up and I’m in space, give it to me. If I’m marked, put it in behind me because I’ll get one of the forwards to run in the channel. We had a good season because, more often than not, I moved inside and gave the left back a decision to make. Either he picked me up and left the channel exposed by getting overly tight, or he gave me the yard I needed to hit Andy Carroll.

  I lost count of the goals I set up for him as a result of yet more simple instructions. If you see me inside and I’m not marked, pull to the far post. Get someone else, Shola Ameobi or Peter Lovenkrands, to run the channel. I will find you. It was all very logical for me. I was very comfortable strategising, thinking ahead.

  Nobby Nolan, captain of that Newcastle team, has all the credentials to be a good manager one day. He is an old-school, arms-around-the-shoulder leader and doesn’t have a bad bone in his body. Yet he lasted only 15 weeks in charge at Leyton Orient, a mess of a club with yet another dysfunctional foreign owner. He didn’t stand a chance because there was no opportunity for him to develop professionally.

  I’m concentrating on gradual evolution, a long-term approach that won’t involve bells and whistles from week one. I need to find people who share my vision. I’m not necessarily focused on a first-team role. I would find two or three years teaching kids in an academy equally fulfilling. Life doesn’t usually offer such solutions, but I’d love eventually to give something back to two clubs in particular: Olympique de Marseille and Newcastle United.

  I don’t want to jump straight into a bear pit, but I am not the type to play at it. If you transmit even the merest hint that you are not genuine, people will see through you. You cannot be the best if you do not believe in what you are doing with the core of your being. I want to be the best coach or manager in the world but to do that something has to give.

  Football demands all or nothing. You ca
n’t have a half-hearted go at it. I know I have the force of will to succeed, but am I prepared to sacrifice my family? Will it be worth it if I win five league titles as a manager and the kids are distant from me? The honest answer, as I sit here today, is no, but it is not that straightforward.

  I’ve generally been consumed by my work throughout the time Georgia has known me. She has seen me at my lowest points – going into jail or sitting at home injured, so down that closing the curtains and shutting out the world seemed rational. She has given me stability, in good times and bad, but understands that football gives me purpose.

  I have spoken to Blackie, and to friends who balance career and family, to try to make sense of the dilemma. They’ve told me to recognise my purpose, follow my dream. If that makes me happy, I will be a better person to be around. If I give up on that dream, there is a chance I will eventually grow resentful and become withdrawn.

  I want my kids to be positive human beings. Being a good father isn’t about being on top of your children all the time. They have to be given the scope to evolve independently, to find their own friends and form their own relationships. Being a good father is being there for them when they need you.

  I’ve thought really deeply about this. There might be the odd night when I am out at a match, and they would prefer to be with me on the sofa, watching a DVD, but I am convinced I can make this work. Football is a brutalising business, but so many people, working all hours on the commuter treadmill, don’t even realise their kids are passing them by. I will be there for mine.

  I need to address common misconceptions about me. I don’t agree with the logic of such unflattering, enduring assumptions, but would prefer to know about them because they give me a base to work from. There will always be those who are determined to think ill of me, whatever I do, but I hope fair-minded people will recognise that I have tried to change.

  The knee-jerk reaction is still to dismiss me as violent, outspoken, whatever. That is a view taken from a specific perspective. It has power only if I allow it to affect me. That does happen occasionally, since I am not a machine, but I try to counteract the trolls by wondering just how sad, or lonely, they must be to get a kick out of abusing me.