Whatever your views on Joey Barton, you simply cannot ignore the man. Enigma is not a word suited to his playing abilities, for he has these in abundance. What does tend to confuse the footballing world however is the inconsistent nature of the diminutive Scouser. One moment he's stubbing out a fag in a team-mate's eye, the next he's citing the works of George Orwell on his beloved Twitter. What makes Barton enigmatic as such is his ability to bitterly disappoint us one day and fill us with pleasant surprise the very same evening.
I'm going to get it out of the way early, I'm a fan of Barton. I don't approve of the violence, nor the obscene language, and I hate the diving. I'm also not a fan of the victimised image he likes to portray at times. From these criticisms you may wonder how I can be a fan at all, but Barton isn't all bad, in fact he's far from it. Yes there are too many off-field misdemeanors to begin to mention here, but it's hard to hold a grudge when the man continuously provides what we as football fans crave at the end of the day: non-stop entertainment. Granted, he has angered many an opposition fan over the years with rash challenges and seemingly unsporting behaviour, but we cannot judge a footballer purely on his on-field performances, for he has the right to be granted a human identity just like the rest of us.
It's important to acknowledge Barton's qualities and the positive side of his debatable character. As previously mentioned, Barton has reveled in the ever-growing Twitter phenomenon, being the perfect character for this form of medium and the perfect account to add to your news feed. His (very) regular tweets range from the stereotypical contextual football-related updates, to the fantastic disputes with the general public, to intellectual philosophical interludes, all of which serve to keep you scrolling. The latter is what I believe separates Barton from the majority of footballers. His, some would say surprising, intelligence is not always evident when the familiar red mist descends on the football pitch, but he is clearly a thoughtful individual with more to his personality than first thought. This is what I mean by entertaining, for he manages to encourage many a bite from the irritating Piers Morgan, while maintaining the moral high ground over his many haters with clever uses of sarcasm and wit that is wasted on the majority of thugs who join twitter just to insult.
Some may say that Barton says what he says and does what he does to get a reaction, an attention seeker in other words. Is it really the real Joey Barton in his tweets? Does he actually read Orwell and ponder over Plato's theories? Only he knows, but he does a damn good job of it. His millions of followers don't follow him because they don't like him, they are genuinely interested in the man, waiting on his every word. It is refreshing to have a player such as him in the modern game. As opposed to Aaron Ramsay telling us whether he is happy or sad after a match, Barton absorbs us with his tweets. Just as Mick McCarthy and Ian Holloway provide a breath of fresh air among managers with their down to earth approach and dry sense of humour, Barton emphasises the importance of individuality in sport, as opposed to jumping on the bandwagon that many Premier League players have already succumbed to. Some may say that there are twice as many negative attributes to Barton's personality than there are positive, but the characteristics that make his personality are the same ones that make him such a good player and a tribute to the English game.
It is easy to dismiss Barton as a typical footballer, a thug, maybe even a criminal. But I believe he is exactly the opposite of that. He is his own person, and no one will be able to change him now. He offers good and bad, like us all, but he does it with a bang. Everyone will have their own opinion on the guy, but be it good or bad, whether you love him or loathe him, appreciate him for who he is, a refreshing enigma of the English game.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Monday, 20 February 2012
Mervyn Westfield - Charged
When it was brought to light that Essex all-rounder Mervyn Westfield accepted £6,000 to concede 12 runs in an over, despite the words reading clearly on the pages of newspapers it was hard to believe, or at least hard to accept.
As feared, the accusations turned out to be valid, and Westfield will face time behind bars as the first ever British cricketer to be convicted of corruption. For the fixer, revealed to be a friend of Danish Kaneria, and the spot-fixing network, this will be a time of celebration, proof that Englishmen are just as vulnerable and susceptible to foul-play than the Pakistanis. Whereas for English cricket, this is a shameful time, something that we'd like to forget but that needs addressing urgently.
It's ironic that just as Alistair Cook is making history in the UAE and English cricket is repairing the damage caused by the embarrassing Pakistan Test series, an English cricketer is found guilty of corruption. Cook must be experiencing some psychological discomfort, trying to enjoy his recent success with the bat while knowing that his former-team mate and beloved Essex side are in the papers back home for all the wrong reasons.
Maybe England's ODI success is merely papering over the cracks of what is, or may become, a much more serious problem at the heart of cricket in this country. We've celebrated ODI success and the return of KP, and rightly so, but while the team strive to remain superior to Pakistan on the pitch, Westfield has exposed the frailties of the anti-corruption measures in the English game which takes that superiority away.
As sad as it was to witness three talented Pakistani cricketers go down for such a shameful crime, the English didn't lose much sleep over it, safe in the knowledge that such a problem has and never will exist in our game, with claims of Strauss' men as criminals in the same series being shot down as false and insignificant. But now, those of us who have dismissed corruption as purely a sub-continental issue, now have to reconsider the integrity of the English game, and this, the ECB will lose sleep over. Granted, as far as we know, Westfield is the only English player to be involved in corruption, but even so, his lack of judgment and failure to report the approach gives spot-fixers hope of finding more vulnerable targets in England.
So what to do now? The ECB have said they are not complacent about fixing, but it must come as a shock to see English cricket in the headlines for a story such as this. Westfield's case must be a warning to all forms of English cricket, as it has been made clear that low profile names are just as vulnerable, if not more so, to corruption abroad. It is important that the ECB keeps an especially close eye on domestic cricket, for in the sub-continent, these matches seem to be followed eagerly for all the wrong reasons.
As feared, the accusations turned out to be valid, and Westfield will face time behind bars as the first ever British cricketer to be convicted of corruption. For the fixer, revealed to be a friend of Danish Kaneria, and the spot-fixing network, this will be a time of celebration, proof that Englishmen are just as vulnerable and susceptible to foul-play than the Pakistanis. Whereas for English cricket, this is a shameful time, something that we'd like to forget but that needs addressing urgently.
It's ironic that just as Alistair Cook is making history in the UAE and English cricket is repairing the damage caused by the embarrassing Pakistan Test series, an English cricketer is found guilty of corruption. Cook must be experiencing some psychological discomfort, trying to enjoy his recent success with the bat while knowing that his former-team mate and beloved Essex side are in the papers back home for all the wrong reasons.
Maybe England's ODI success is merely papering over the cracks of what is, or may become, a much more serious problem at the heart of cricket in this country. We've celebrated ODI success and the return of KP, and rightly so, but while the team strive to remain superior to Pakistan on the pitch, Westfield has exposed the frailties of the anti-corruption measures in the English game which takes that superiority away.
As sad as it was to witness three talented Pakistani cricketers go down for such a shameful crime, the English didn't lose much sleep over it, safe in the knowledge that such a problem has and never will exist in our game, with claims of Strauss' men as criminals in the same series being shot down as false and insignificant. But now, those of us who have dismissed corruption as purely a sub-continental issue, now have to reconsider the integrity of the English game, and this, the ECB will lose sleep over. Granted, as far as we know, Westfield is the only English player to be involved in corruption, but even so, his lack of judgment and failure to report the approach gives spot-fixers hope of finding more vulnerable targets in England.
So what to do now? The ECB have said they are not complacent about fixing, but it must come as a shock to see English cricket in the headlines for a story such as this. Westfield's case must be a warning to all forms of English cricket, as it has been made clear that low profile names are just as vulnerable, if not more so, to corruption abroad. It is important that the ECB keeps an especially close eye on domestic cricket, for in the sub-continent, these matches seem to be followed eagerly for all the wrong reasons.
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