I wanted to quit footy and run away to Fiji at 22 – one chat turned my life around, says ex-Rangers star Joey Barton
JOEY BARTON has revealed he considered QUITTING football altogether and trying to “disappear” – back when he was only 22.
The former Rangers, Manchester City and Newcastle star, currently boss at Bristol Rovers, had plenty of ups and downs both on and off the field during his playing career.
He’s been honest in his assessment that he was shunned from the England national team setup due to his “wildcat” approach to the game and his comments criticising some of the country’s top stars at the time for “cashing in” on their international status.
While still not being one to shy away from voicing his opinion, Barton admits he has turned his perspective on life around from his troubled younger days.
In a wide-ranging chat on the Tubes & Ange Golf Life YouTube channel, Barton candidly opened up on his journey through both football and life in general.
He reflected with host Tubes on how he’s matured and the more broad outlook he has on life these days as a coach and a person.
Barton, 40, admits growing up with a “council estate mentality” helped him to punch above his weight on the pitch, but it also led to him making things difficult for himself.
Over the years he’s worked hard to maintain his football career and since retiring, he’s earned plaudits for his work in management and signed a contract extension with Bristol Rovers last summer after leading them to promotion.
But back in 2005, it was all so different.
On a pre-season tour of Thailand with Man City, Barton got involved in a bar fight with skipper Richard Dunne and a teenage Everton fan.
He was sent home from the tour and around the same time, his brother and cousin were convicted of the murder of 18-year-old Anthony Walker.
A harrowing drama was later made about the killing, which was racially-motivated.
For Barton, the experience also convinced him to seek help to control his emotions himself.
“I had a fight in Thailand with Richard Dunne and an Everton fan. I think I slapped the fan and Richard Dunne and I got into a wrestling match,” he began.
“After that I got a phone call from John Wardle (Man City chairman). I’d flown (to Manchester) via Frankfurt from Thailand so the press couldn’t get me.
“Stuart Pearce (Man City manager) wanted to put me in a Thai jail to teach me a lesson. It never happened but that’s what he openly said.
“I slept off the jet lag and at that time I was living with my brother Andrew, and he said ‘Someone’s been killed off our estate’.”
Barton immediately tried to ring his other brother, Michael, who was living with their mum at the time.
He couldn’t get through to him and received an international dialling tone, and thought to himself: “Well, at least he’s not in the country. I was thinking it could be him who was up to no good.”
At the same time, the young footballer was receiving calls from Peter Kay of Sporting Chance, a charity aimed at athletes suffering from mental and emotional health problems.
However, given his namesake was the biggest comedian in the UK at the time, Barton thought it was just a wind-up.
Then came the bombshell phone call from his brother, where he learned of his involvement in the murder of Walker.
At that moment, Barton felt like quitting football altogether and just running away from it aLl.
“I’m like, oh God. I’m not going back to football. I need to get off to Australia and canoe off to some island and become like Tom Hanks in Castaway.
“I had a little bit of money but not enough to disappear for ten years.
“But I was checking out, I was done with football.”
It was only then he accepted Wardle’s call, who explained to him that he was going to be fined for his conduct on the tour of Thailand but that if he attended the Sporting Chance clinic, he would be docked just two weeks’ worth of wages as opposed to six.
Barton said: “I needed a bolt hole anywhere. I was thinking of running off to Australia or Fiji. I just needed out of the house and away from the situation.
“What [City] didn’t know was that the [Thailand] situation was going to blow over, but I’m seeing this tsunami approaching.”
Barton confessed that at first, he only really agreed to go to Sporting Chance to “get the money back and get away from what was going on in Liverpool”.
He continued: “First day, didn’t speak to anyone, sat on my own and dinner and I just remember thinking, and I don’t know how it came into my head, but I just remember thinking ‘What have you got to lose here? You feel like s***, you’re dead angry, you’re ready to f****** scrap with anybody at any time, maybe you’ll learn something?’
“So I ended up going in with James (West), I’d already met Peter by this point and we just had a chat.
“James is a reformed drug addict and reformed alcoholic. He’s a salt of the earth cockney fella. When you go to those meetings, you meet these proper people and there’s no bull**** with them.
“We were just sitting there chatting away and I thought I’d share some stuff I’d never shared before, and I opened up a little bit.
“And I thought, ‘F*** me, that felt great.’
“I opened up again with Peter later and that felt alright again.
“From that moment, and I didn’t open up like a dam bursting or anything like but incrementally, I knew I had to work it at all the time.
“It was the start of the 12 steps, I had to admit there was something bigger than me and that I was powerless.”
He added: “I’ve done a lot of work on myself, Peter at Sporting Chance became a great friend of mine and great mentor and really helped me turn my life around from a male psychology standpoint at 21, 22.
“Later I met Steve Black who gave me a completely different perspective when I was 30.
“I looked at it and could see I was a kid off a council estate doing these things, and I think in the dressing room, in everybody life and just with the people that you meet, it’s important to talk.
“For me, the most important commodity you’ve got on this planet is your time. You can’t get that back.
“I’ve got a great life now and I always say to people it’s not about where you start, it’s about where you finish.
“None of us are perfect, none of us are superhuman, some of us dress it up a bit better hide it a bit better or whatever but as soon as you can go, ‘D’you know what mate, I’m not feeling good today’, and the more you can talk about that, you can make life easier for yourself.”
“I realised this summer that I’ve made life a lot harder for myself for 40 years, because I had this imposter mentality, coming off a council estate.”
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