Joey Barton Waves Goodbye. This Is The End. (Sort Of.)
As a result of those interviews – slotted neatly into the middle of a self-promoting book tour, Barton was paid off by the club. The movie can draw the ending out as much as they like, but I think it would be appropriate to have the black screen and some text to remind people of what he brought to the game he was going to boss.
He was at Ibrox for a mere 113 days.
He played a grand total of eight games.
He played in wins over the mighty football powers of Annan Athletic, Stranraer, Peterhead, Motherwell and Dundee.
He played in draws against Killie and Hamilton.
And he played in the 5-1 drubbing at the hands of Celtic, where Brown owned him for the 90 minutes.
It was his final appearance for the club.
Like I said, the rules of narrative structure have been completely blown with this one.
If you assume he was on £20,000 a week, he cost them, in wages alone for his time at the club, somewhere in the region of £320,000 before whatever he got as a pay-off.
To make sure the club was getting rid of him properly, and spinning it their way, they leaked his medical records to The Daily Record. No movie would be complete without that salient detail. And it wouldn’t be complete without his foolishly accepting a non-disclosure agreement as part of the settlement. We were, thereby, denied the ending we really wanted to see, where he aired all the dirty laundry in public. As it stands he can’t even mention any of it in a future book.
