by First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. Then, several years after you win, the former Queens Park Rangers midfielder inexplicably tries to fight you again in an attempt to promote his podcast. Like a fascinating maxim ripped from the pages of philosophy books he has only briefly read, Joey Barton’s story can be interpreted pretty much any way you like.
The first reaction to the latest wave of scouts from the former Rangers representative may also be the most natural: ignore it, starve it of oxygen, move on. This is partly because his motivations for railing against the philosophy of women in men’s football are so cynically transparent.
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Why engage on the rational level only with someone who works completely outside the bounds of reason? This is, in many ways, the rhetorical equivalent of Barton’s dismissal for QPR against Manchester City on the final day of the 2011-12 season: a blur of unfocused, indiscriminate anger, a last-ditch effort to drag someone else down in a lie. him before he goes down the tunnel and without him knowing.
Of course, this goes much deeper than the ex-manager of Bristol Rovers only 41 years old (win ratio 37.1%) and his crumpled onanistic desire to feel something again. Not least because of the way he extended his generic criticism to specific broadcasters, who then had to face the wrath of their 2.7 million followers on social media. And especially because of the extra emotional labor that many women in football felt obliged to do in those days: to defend their positions, to defend their colleagues, to defend their right simply to make a living earn against a high margin of insanity with seemingly inexhaustible reserves. time, self-hatred and burner accounts.
Enough now. This is a male problem, and to be honest men have been putting off the hard work on this for a long time. And it’s a very specific football problem, even if, in its shameless triumph, the one-minute 11-minute cap wonder is clearly targeting the same far-right talking points as more seasoned online contractors such as Andrew Tate and Russell Brand and that Tory. MP with the Rick Parfitt wig whose name I keep forgetting.
From the earliest times, football has been a petri dish of bruised and broken masculinity, conceived from the first principles as a place where men gather to make and create themselves. Where the constraints and compromises of wider society did not apply. If – from the platform wreck to the Premier League sex party – overt masculinity was always presented rather than reined in. And although the sport is more diverse than ever, a safer space for women than ever, the culture continues; maybe that’s not much in the glass-flecked path but in the fan forum, the newspaper comments section, the legal injunction strictly worded to protect the identity of the latest footballer accused of sexual violence.
For the ex-footballer, who flew unceremoniously from the carousel, who is now on the outside looking in, the values and certainties that have helped them succeed in this world offer precious little protection. Perhaps that is why so many ex-footballers fall prey to financial scams or conspiracy theories, convinced that the same special intelligence that slipped them free from society’s chains can help them do just that. again.
How does Matt Le Tissier share the strange and antisemitic 9/11 conspiracy? Why does Iker Casillas think the moon landing was fake? How does Rickie Lambert go about marching against the “15 minute city” and sharing something called the “Great Awakening Theory”? How does Barton become a hero to the “alt-right” fan Alex Jones?
The subject itself is little worth going into in any kind of detail, but there is a common worldview at work here: not coherent by any stretch but devastatingly clear in its emotional drive, its determination to see darkened enemies in all place. The world is not what we were told it was. We’ve all been lied to. And I am – the unhappy middle-aged man, the last permissible victim of society – the last hope against the total collapse of humanity.
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Why would Barton try to rebrand himself in the footsteps of the mainstream far right? Perhaps the most active question is: why not? This is a man who craves controversy and provokes and provokes attention at all times: often by the mostly middle class, who has been shown the ability to quote the staid cookie crumbs of Nietzsche or Viktor Frankl as some kind of noble redemption . arc.
Do you remember the concerted efforts about ten years ago to reposition this convicted criminal as some misunderstood urchin intellectual? The marketing of the book, the relaxed cover, the romanticization of a violent era, the invitation to the Quiz. “If I’m somewhere and there are four really ugly girls, I’m thinking: ‘She’s not the worst,'” he told the Ukip politician on the programme. Who could have seen this bright young man doing rent-a-misogynist on Elon Musk’s platform?
So yes: ignore Barton if you must. If that helps you get through the day. But by the same token something very sinister is happening here, a gathering movement of disaffected young men embodied in our current political moment, of which Barton is only an opportunistic symbol.
It begins with a passing comment about women on television. With an easy dumb jibe at the Lionesses. History tells us it never ends that way.
