Thank you Rab

In the comedy series Rab C Nesbitt, Rab and his mates take a holiday to Spain in one episode and Rab spies a Spanish version of himself ranting at nobody in particular in the street. Rab is overcome with emotion that it demonstrates that no matter where you go in the world it is comforting to find someone more of a nutter than you are.

Chris Mackin may not be a nutter but it comforts me that his article on the Barton coverage strikes a chord:

Despite the level of debate rarely rising above the level of taxi driver ramblings, the sheer amount of coverage awarded Joey Barton's release from prison in itself tells a fascinating story. The papers have went positively ga-ga over this one; only the addition of a disappearing canoe or a premium rate phone line scandal could have secured it more reportage. Even the Mirror's very own Cruella De Ville, Sue Carrol, took time out of stern faced moralising and hoarding puppies for their fur (allegedly) to sermonize on the issue in today's column; under the heading ‘Keegan out of Toon with fans' (presumably a stab at a pun despite its dogged refusal to work as a clever piece of word play in any capacity whatsoever) Sue brazenly invited us to consider the ‘groundswell of anger on Tyneside over his return'.

‘Groundswell of anger' may be pushing it. If I'm any sort of reliable representation- and if not and Barton is abused and hounded, at our first home game, I'm prepared to admit I'm out of step with my fellow supporters - you'd have been far more likely to catch Newcastle United supporters recreating the best bits in The Dark Knight or talking about what lovely weather we'd been having recently over this weekend than frothing at the mouth and punching walls in righteous fury over our manager's backing of Barton. It all seems pretty straight forward; Barton isn't the cuddliest of blokes, but he's served his time and his manager seems to think he's earned a second chance. Quite reasonable, I'd suggest, but on the press plough, insisting themselves upon us, forcibly shoving words of discontent into our mouths, we are outraged and appalled and organising mass season ticket burnings for the home friendly against Valencia.

On the face of it, it's tricky to work out why exactly this is such a sexy story for the nation's journalists. Certainly in terms of narrative drive the plot is somewhat bereft of a thrilling lead; Baron ambles around in an air of hazy and unrelenting grey mist, all gaunt features and unkempt hair, visually an exact replica of what would happen if you asked a particularly unskilled child to sculpt a Gallagher brother out of Playdough. In terms of Super villain charisma he's hardly likely to be threatening the major comic book franchises any time soon-he makes the slightly stand-offish man who checked your ticket on the train this morning look like The Joker. And it's not as if the tale has followed any sort of well defined and juicy arc- Barton announced himself as a fairly unpleasant individual with a questionable taste in jumpers and drinking companions during his Manchester City career and has stuck rigidly to that premise since the halcyon days of stubbing out cigars in youth players' eyes. There's been no metamorphic fall from grace here, no dramatic rise then plunge, for Fleet Street's finest to document, it's a fairly bland story, all told, and yet they refuse to leave us alone about it for five minutes and go and bug somebody else for a while.

So we are left with little choice but to deduce their motives have a more sinister slant to them - namely, they are using the Barton issue as another stick in a long and increasingly monotonous series with which to beat Newcastle United. After all, it's been five and a half minutes since the ‘Ashley selling to Bin Laden- this means Wor' headlines and all the side splitting mirth they generated ("Ha! It's Hee-lairious because it trivialises the deaths of thousands!"). That they're doing yet more sneaky muck raking under the intensely patronising pretence of ‘giving the long suffering Toon army a voice' makes the whole thing at least eight hundred times more irritating-they are an interfering neighbour rudely peering into our garden and passing supposedly innocent comment on a tuft of spouting Wild Garlics. Talking in wildly broad and emotive terms, "Barton Breaks out" this and "90% of the fans think he's a thug" that, the media have been at their passive aggressive and manipulative best throughout this story; so devoid of productive input into the debate has their contribution been they may as well have been standing on one leg with a pencil up their nose quoting random snippets of Monty Python dialogue.

For whatever its worth, my take on the issue is give or take, what it was to Lee Bowyer's arrival at Newcastle; I just don't think Barton's talent justifies any moral hand wringing and we're better off not wasting our time with it at all. But if Kevin Keegan thinks Barton deserves another shot then I think it's pretty ace we have such a fair minded and decent bloke managing our team and I'm more than prepared to extend my support to Kev on this issue, if not Barton. And if this puts me at odds with any reactionary and cantankerous Daily Mail columnists desperate for any opportunity to stick their boot into my football club then that makes me feel a bit like a freewheeling anarchist performing ‘God Save The Queen' on ‘Top of the Pops' and sticking to The Man. Which is obviously A Good Thing.