firstdivision

I totally agree, Dave. Great to win but it was a horrible scuffle of a match illuminated only by our superb second goal. Preston are quite a tough side to play against. Very grateful they gave us a goal and that we have Alex Scott.

Wow. Alex Scott.

It was over two legs, that semi-final. Gilzean equalised in the last minute of the 1-1 draw at AG. We lost the second leg 2-0.

I think we definitely need 1 or 2 now, though, Dave. We don’t want to risk our Championship place. Squad so thin, especially if we get more injuries. Shame we don’t have those extra buffer points from Hull (a), Wigan (a), Blackpool (a) and Blackburn (h). Probably 7pts lost there for a mixture of frustrating reasons. I count Blackburn because on another day the lino would have kept his flag down (for what looked such a tight offside).

I didn’t ask a question; I made a statement. But you buy him now to make sure someone else doesn’t get him…because there’s so much to work with.

I find it very surprising that a PL club hasn’t taken a £25m punt on him in this window. He might be a ‘one for the future’ for a big PL club at the moment but there is so much to work with.

Spurs away for me.

Roger, every player is for sale at the right price. As I’m sure you know.

Premier League clubs must be mad if they’re not prepared to pay £25m for Alex Scott now. Some of them spend £20m on a pair of old Y-fronts

That would be funny if it weren’t so close to the truth.

Totally agree re: recruitment. We will have to replace Antoine. Ogbene has caught my eye as well.

Left field, I know, but I think one of the add-ons should be £3m if WE get relegated.

It’s just giving referees carte blanche.

More like the answer to saving Bristol City from relegation is Antoine Semenyo.

I definitely wouldn’t play him today…

Good way of putting it re: Sam Bell’s future. I’ve seen a couple of flashes of ability this season, but I’m reluctantly on black as well.

Well, a couple of things, Silvio. How about, 'thank you for taking the time to post the whole article so I can read it and make up my own mind about what's in it', which you've been able to do. I also invited readers to look at JB's comments and make their own mind up. I highlighted those comments from the Gas 'top brass' because a few words can say a lot about an organisation's mindset (for me, a bizarre take on how they see themselves vis-a-vis us). It's called the power of words. It's why ads don't last for an hour. And that's why HW chose to include them. Do you think they were the only things they said to him. Of course not. They stood out to him as well. As they stood out to me.

The full text. Article by Henry Winter. It’s a wind-blown morning on a strip of land next to where the M5 crosses the M4. Bristol Rovers defenders are doing a passing drill under Joey Barton. He’s coaxing and cajoling. It’s repetitive but vital work, the nuts and bolts that hold a game plan together. It’s work that underpins why “the Gas” achieved the fifth-most points of the 92 professional clubs in 2022, why they went up from League Two, and why they are eighth in League One. Because the controversial Barton is in charge, Rovers’ story can often be solely focused on him. There are good people working hard to drive Rovers up. Over the past year, I’ve spent time with the owner, Wael al-Qadi, hearing of his plans for a 20,000-seater stadium, with Tom Gorringe, the chief executive highly regarded within the industry, and Barton himself. A complex, troubled character, Barton is one of the most promising young managers in the country and is doing remarkable things at Rovers. But before we move on to the football, there is no avoiding the recent headlines over a domestic abuse charge that was dropped after his wife withdrew her evidence. Barton was charged with assaulting Georgia Barton by beating in Kew, west London, on June 2, 2021. Wimbledon magistrates’ court was told that Georgia dialled 999 and said: “My husband has just hit me in the house.” When the police arrived, she said, “I’ve been pushed down and kicked about and stuff.” The court heard she was left with a bruise the size of a golf ball on her forehead and a bleeding nose after a day of heavy drinking with two other couples. Women’s Aid, the campaign group, have a “Football United against Domestic Violence” initiative to highlight the problems in society and they work with football to raise awareness. “With an estimated 1.6 million women in England and Wales experiencing domestic abuse every year, it is extremely prevalent across society and the reality is that most perpetrators of domestic abuse will not be convicted,” Teresa Parker, spokesperson for Women’s Aid, tells me. ADVERTISEMENT “The vast majority living with an abusive partner never access the criminal justice system at all, with under one in five survivors reporting the abuse to the police. The perpetrator might be someone they still have a relationship with, whether their partner or father to their children — or they might be too frightened of the repercussions of telling the police, if their partner is arrested and then later released.” It’s clear the club were very aware of how divided the fanbase was. “We had supporters who were affected by it, who weren’t comfortable with what they’d read in the press, which was understandable,” Gorringe says. “Joey’s completely aware that many other people [clubs] wouldn’t have given him the support he’s had here.” If Barton had been found guilty, he would have been dismissed. Georgia wrote to the Crown Prosecution Service on February 17, 2022, saying she was injured accidentally when friends intervened. The case was adjourned to June 23 and dismissed on October 31 after the prosecution refused to call Georgia to give evidence over fears she would give an “exculpatory account” to help her husband. Barton arrives at Wimbledon magistrates’ court with Georgia in October when the case against him for allegedly assaulting her was dismissed REX FEATURES So I ask Barton what happened. We are talking in his training ground office on November 8. “There’s been a disagreement, there’s been raised voices, it’s kicked off in the house, drink-related, but we were fine within 24, 48 hours afterwards,” Barton recalls. “I’ve got to stay at our house in London — that’s where they bailed me to — and Georgia’s gone back to our house in Liverpool. There’s a restraining order on you, you’re not allowed to see your own kids, it lasted about ten days. You have social workers coming and siphoning the kids off and asking them questions. They are there to protect people who are being beat up by their partner. I don’t blame the police or the social services. If there’s not a 999 call, if we’re not arguing, then it doesn’t get to that stage.” Looking back, Barton says: “I was deeply embarrassed. When I picked up the kids from school I was thinking these mums and dads are thinking I’ve been beating my missus up, especially with my narrative. If you knew my background, you’d think, ‘He’s a violent man.’ It couldn’t be further from the truth. Me and my missus very, very rarely argue. She’s been a real strength in my life. I feel really safe when I am with her. I come from a broken home. I feel an outlaw.” It’s hard to feel sympathy for Barton. Others endure difficult upbringings and do not find themselves in shameful headlines. Football, a world of few morals, has kept giving Barton another chance because of his ability as a player and now as a manager. On December 6, 2021, Barton, then at Fleetwood Town, was cleared of an alleged tunnel altercation with the then Barnsley manager Daniel Stendel in 2019. Barton had “vehemently denied” the charge. He was going through the legal process relating to the domestic abuse charge and felt himself slipping “lower and lower”. He says: “The Stendel thing, and what happened with my missus, affected me. It absolutely got to me. I reached out to the LMA [League Managers Association] because I was having suicidal thoughts.” Barton admits that there “were certainly times where I’d have been sectioned” during one particularly difficult patch PA It was early last season and results were going against Rovers. “My family had all gone away to Wales camping and the only reason I drove home was I’d got my garden to look after. It’s my addictive personality. I watched Monty Don’s Japanese Gardens and wanted to change my garden where I can rake the stones. The garden had been neglected. I didn’t fancy sleeping in the tent for two nights. ADVERTISEMENT “I’ll do bits in the garden and then drive to Wales. It’s 2am, I can’t sleep — if we got beaten, I can’t sleep — and I was at a really low ebb. I thought, ‘I’ll do the gardening now.’ I went in my shed and got a miner’s lamp and go in the back garden at 2am. For me this is perfectly rational. I need to weed it. Then I thought, ‘What happens here if the neighbours see me in the garden, think it’s a burglar and phone the police?’ The last thing I need is the police being phoned on me again.” So he went inside. “No one’s in the house. It’s a lonely place. My brain had lots of thoughts. I knew a few people who suffer from depression. I was thinking, ‘How does someone go from being depressed to wanting to kill themselves?’ That chain of thought happened and I couldn’t stop thinking about suicide. I didn’t want to do it but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I ended up going into a really dark place. I was anxious. I felt, ‘If I go to sleep here, you’re not going to wake up in the morning, you’re going to die in your sleep, and who’s going to find you?’ So I can’t go to sleep. I put the TV on to distract my mind. 3.30am. I finally went to sleep, and when I woke up I thought, ‘I need to speak to somebody.’ “I phoned Georgia and three or four people. My dad was going, ‘Promise you’re OK? I’m coming.’ There was a picture of our kids in our bedroom, and I was just focusing on that, thinking, ‘Come on, settle.’ ” Friends and family rallied round. “There were certainly times where I’d have been sectioned,” he says. “If I’d gone and spoken to someone because of the pressures of the job as head coach they would have medicated me. I’ve never classed myself as sane. I find it tough to switch off from football. Football’s an illness. I can’t help but watch, think, consume football. Football’s an addiction that you can’t get therapy for. It’s a terminal illness that I’ll live with until the day I die. It gradually turns your hair grey and puts more lines in your forehead, and then the side of your eyes. It makes me grind my teeth in my sleep. Winning is the medication for the illness. “I spoke to the LMA and I knew lots of coaches had struggled. I knew it was the pressures of life added to the pressures of management. Mental health is not just players. It affects every single person. There are times when my brain moves so quickly I think I’m going insane. I have to get into meditation, a real good way of slowing my brain down. “I spoke to people who cared for me. I was really candid and spoke to Georgia. ‘Dychy’ [Sean Dyche] has been really good with me, really candid. I’ve been so fortunate to have good people around me. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them. I’ve been fortunate that I haven’t had a repeat. People go on antidepressants. That’s not my way. My way is, ‘Find a way out of it.’ ” Barton says his behavioural issues and reputation left him with “unfulfilled ambition” with regards to his England career PA:PRESS ASSOCIATION Barton offers a bit of context: “There are times I walk round and I feel I’m Superman. You give anyone the cards I was dealt early in life, they don’t achieve some of the things I have. But there have been loads of times when I thought, ‘I’m not getting results, can I take this on?’ ADVERTISEMENT “I always have that good and bad wolf talking to me, that’s what made me a great player, the bad wolf saying, ‘You’re shit, you’re going to get found out this weekend, you’re going to be on Match of the Day getting ridiculed, then suddenly you go, good wolf, ‘I’ve played 250-plus games in the Premier League.’ That internal conflict always goes on. As player, as manager, as a person. “I’m always thinking I’m going mad. I was a good player, well better than the natural talent I was given. I’m 5ft 10in, 75 kilos, playing against people who were 6ft 4in. When I ran into [Patrick] Vieira and Stevie G [Gerrard], they were bigger than me, better, and had more natural talent than me. I wasn’t the most talented player so I had to out-think everybody.” Now 40, Barton played for Manchester City, Newcastle United, Queens Park Rangers, Burnley and Rangers, had a season on loan with Marseille and was capped once, by Steve McClaren in 2007. “I have a lot of frustration from unfulfilled ambition,” Barton says. “I didn’t play in the Champions League, although I qualified at Marseille. I didn’t play enough for England, even though if you go and watch that 18 minutes I played against Spain I more than held my own — I could play at that level because they [Spain] went on to win a Euros and a World Cup. “Behavioural issues were factors used against me. When Fabio Capello was in [charge], I was playing as good as anyone in England for that spell at Newcastle and he says he’s not going to pick me as a loose cannon.” Barton now pours his energy into management. “I wanted us to be part of the EU but I’ve had enough of us being told that the British were not as good as these foreign coaches,” he says. Barton made more than 250 Premier League appearances for clubs that included QPR GETTY IMAGES “When you are as talented as I am at what I do, and there is a scarcity of talent in the market, all I have to do is stay out of trouble. And that’s not easy for me. The only person who can stop me getting to where I want to get to is me.” ADVERTISEMENT He’s said it before. He’s been told it before, particularly by his old mentor, Peter Kay, the co-founder of the Sporting Chance rehab clinic, who died in 2013. “Peter used to talk to me about a self-saboteur inside,” Barton adds. “How do I escape? I don’t bet. Luckily one of the vices I got wasn’t women. I never got into prescription meds. I was constantly offered sleeping tablets but I didn’t like the way I felt hollow the next day — I know we have an epidemic of that. “Drinking has been a huge problem in my life. I’ve stopped intermittently. You’re drinking to escape life, drinking to black out. When Wayne [Rooney] spoke about it [binge drinking, last February] I could completely understand. I’ve always thought, ‘How did he deal with the pressures?’ People forget we’re normal people. I walk around the streets and can’t be myself. I can’t go anywhere. I’m not at David Beckham’s level, but even in London, it’s constant [attention]. I wish I had a mask. Nobody knew who I was during Covid. “I’ve never, ever liked it [the fame]. I’m a kid off a council estate. It opens a few doors but, overwhelmingly, fame has been bad for me. It’s got me in all sorts of trouble, people have had an argument with me and being the street fighter like I am, I ain’t backing down. Don’t forget, my dad brought me up to survive on a council estate. Where I grew up, the challenge is just staying alive every day. You’re ducking and diving, making sure that you make it to school without getting stabbed and you get home without getting stabbed. It’s a jungle out there.” I mention again that others grew up in difficult circumstances and have not got themselves into trouble. This constant “noise”, I ask Barton, does he need it? “I don’t thrive off it, albeit I can survive. Some people are war prime ministers like Winston Churchill, some people are peace prime ministers. I do function really well in times of war. I do. I prefer not to. The way Wael and the supporters have been with me, I want to stay here until I put them in the Premier League. I can get Rovers up, absolutely. We were in a death spiral when I joined. Standards were low. But I knew I had a really great owner. When I was going through a bad run of results, Wael said, ‘You can lose the next 50 games and I won’t get rid of you.’ ” Despite the troubles, al-Qadi’s faith has not wavered since the moment he decided to appoint him. “I felt Joe was exactly what was needed to shake this place up,” al-Qadi says. “He’s played at the highest level, he’s a winner, very passionate, the kind of guy who elevates the club to where we want it to be.” Barton says “no coaches talk like I do” but that his honesty is one of his best traits ADRIAN SHERRATT That includes a new ground. “We are crying out for a modern stadium,” al-Qadi says. “What we have now [the Memorial Stadium] is an old, dilapidated rugby stadium. Bristol Rovers are like the Boca Juniors of Bristol, the first club of Bristol — five generations of fans come to games and it’s truly great to have. This my passion, my love.” Gorringe moved from Brighton & Hove Albion because he could see Rovers’ potential. “If you look at the city, we are the people’s club of Bristol, hard-working, give everything you’ve got, a community club, authentic, unbelievable fans,” Gorringe says. “Joe encapsulates that underdog spirit. He cares about everyone here.” Back on the training field, Barton’s meticulousness is at work. “We do sessions where we just pass the ball for an hour, right foot, left foot, the right spin has to be on it, the right pace has to be on it,” Barton says. “I’m very, very fortunate I came from a centre of excellence at Everton where from seven years of age we were focused on the details.” Barton certainly doesn’t hold back when offering opinions. “No coaches talk like I do. I might lose my job, Wael might get pissed off and say ‘get the **** out the club’ but I have to be cards on the table. Coaching ability is about man-management, emotional management, psychology,” he says. “We say a morning prayer before we start the session because my theory is if there is a God, we might as well ask him to look after us.” Barton called out one player for not having his boot laces done up right. “I don’t miss anything: ‘Do your ****ing laces up.’ We work hard. We had Elliot Anderson [of Newcastle]. We’ve got Glenn Whelan, 91 caps for his country [Ireland]. We’ve got Scott Sinclair, who’s got 500-plus games.” Whelan comes off the field for a chat, shirt soaked in sweat. Sinclair stays back a little longer, practising finishing. These old pros set the right tone for Rovers’ in-form forwards, Josh Coburn (on loan from Middlesbrough) and Aaron Collins. “I expect excellence. I want to put a blue flag down in this city that everyone who comes after me says, ‘He’s the guy to follow.’ I’ve been humbled by this job. I’ve learnt so much here. I know I am going to get to the top,” says Joey Barton, good manager, flawed man.

A few from the blue quarter of the city getting carried away in The Times this morning - the giddiness of being in the national press. I'll leave you to source JB's wide-ranging, guileless comments and make your own judgements. But this from the owner: “We are crying out for a modern stadium,” al-Qadi says. “What we have now [the Memorial Stadium] is an old, dilapidated rugby stadium. Bristol Rovers are like the Boca Juniors of Bristol, the first club of Bristol — five generations of fans come to games and it’s truly great to have. This my passion, my love.” And this from the chief executive: Gorringe moved from Brighton & Hove Albion because he could see Rovers’ potential. “If you look at the city, we are the people’s club of Bristol, hard-working, give everything you’ve got, a community club, authentic, unbelievable fans,” Amazing what a few wins can do for your hubris.

I think our penalty drought is karma for the absurd one we were given in the last minute of the QPR game in February 2019. BTW has anyone worked out how many we've had given against us in the same period we are complaining about? Most clubs' supporters know who their team's penalty taker is. I have no idea (if Chris Martin isn't on the field). Wells? Naismith? Antoine? Billy Wedlock?

I’ve seen both first-half shouts many times over and I can’t categorically say either were a penalty. On one angle, it looked as if the defender got some of the ball on the first shout. I found it hard to tell. On the other, the TV angle is not clear enough to be definitive. Not to me anyone. I’ve tried to be totally objective about it. When we get our one penalty of the decade, I want it to be at a decisive moment in a vital league game.

I’m absolutely sick to death of seeing away fans celebrating (in the Atyeo). Stick them in a corner or up high where we can’t see or hear them. But better still - starting winning some home matches so they have nothing to shout about.

Apology accepted. We were ok tonight. A more logical team selection, thank god. Solid performance. Largely unattractive game. Millwall looked ordinary but they do some things very well, generally the ugly things. Good to see Antoine back, too. He’s not quite at the level yet but he created one great chance, nearly scored and was a pest after a disjointed first 30. I nearly always select him in my team. I have King nowhere near it and I don’t have Weimann as wing back if I can help it.

Who says I want NP out, Dave? I have never said that. I’m sceptical about his time as manager, yes. I don’t particularly like his demeanour. I wouldn’t have given him a three-year contract 18 months ago. But please find where I’ve written that I want him out. Go on. I honestly don’t know the right course of action. I debate it with myself every day. What I do find puzzling is the unswerving faith in him from some. It feels almost cultish at times. Just because I praised Harry’s post, people get their y-fronts in a twist. So be it. I’ll be at Millwall tonight hoping we can get three points, like I was at the WBA game on Monday. I hope everyone on here will be joining me. I didn’t boo on Monday. I didn’t shout ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’. I didn’t shout ‘we want Pearson out.’ What does make me laugh, though, is the ‘there’s no alternative’ narrative. There’s always an alternative. No one knows whether the alternative will be better or worse. But they assert that they do. I don’t know and nor do you.

You really need to stop this, Harry - putting thought-provoking posts on here that go against the ‘woe is us’ orthodoxy.