Bristol Rovers statement concerning alleged assault on a woman

[lambers]

Barton, as a player, was the sort of toxic talent that some managers wouldn't touch with a barge pole, but others would think, in a romantic novel way, "I can tame him!"

Why directors/chairmen seen to be taking the same approach to his management skills is beyond me.

[Patrick Thistle]

He's always been indulged, like a pet cat the owner insists would never shit in your garden even when you show them the video of their cat repeatedly shitting in your garden.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Barton, as a player, was the sort of toxic talent that some managers wouldn't touch with a barge pole, but others would think, in a romantic novel way, "I can tame him!"

Why directors/chairmen seen to be taking the same approach to his management skills is beyond me.

Without doubt. Desperation is also a factor sometimes. He came to QPR when new, utterly naive, owners had bought the club. We'd just been promoted to the EPL, there were two weeks left in the Summer transfer window and our previous owners had refused to spend a bent penny on players. We needed bodies with Prem experience, there weren't many out there, Barton was one. I'm sure Warnock knew what he was getting, but he was canned just after Christmas.

[Gas In Name Only]

Without doubt. Desperation is also a factor sometimes. He came to QPR when new, utterly naive, owners had bought the club. We'd just been promoted to the EPL, there were two weeks left in the Summer transfer window and our previous owners had refused to spend a bent penny on players. We needed bodies with Prem experience, there weren't many out there, Barton was one. I'm sure Warnock knew what he was getting, but he was canned just after Christmas.

Desperation was definitely a factor here in February. Had just sacked our second manager of the season, just outside the relegation zone and an awful January window in which we failed to sign the striker we were crying out for but did manage to sign a full back to add to our collection of a few dozen (or that's what it felt like). The owner/president is similarly naive and easily impressed by celebrity and once our interest was confirmed it seemed crushingly inevitable that we would be landed with Barton.

The club has removed the offending statement - though they took their bloody time doing it - and has done the sort of pre-season things - signing Brett Pitman, unveiling a lovely away strip, selling 700+ tickets for Mansfield away - that would usually inspire a bout of no doubt misplaced optimism in all and sundry.

Yet I am still seeing social media activity from fans that gives me the chills - eg a male supporter telling a female Gashead that she needs to 'get over it' when she expressed her feelings around no longer feeling safe attending matches. If I'm finding this all very upsetting I can only imagine how Rovers supporting women are feeling just now.

I'm just back from visiting Scarborough to watch Gloucestershire beat Durham (yeah I know, I don't know why it was being played there either) and the story was the first thing mentioned when we met fellow Glos/Gas fans there and brought up by Durham & Yorkshire fans when they found out who we support. I'm getting WhatsApps from friends who don't even follow football telling me my club can get in the bin. Whole thing's an absolute skip fire and so completely avoidable.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Yet I am still seeing social media activity from fans that gives me the chills - eg a male supporter telling a female Gashead that she needs to 'get over it' when she expressed her feelings around no longer feeling safe attending matches. If I'm finding this all very upsetting I can only imagine how Rovers supporting women are feeling just now.

Yeah, the residual knock-on negativity can last awhile. Last season, when we had a poor pre-Christmas run, and the knives were out for Warburton, there were a few in the "Bring in Joey, he'll sort 'em out!" camp.

[Gas In Name Only]

Yeah, the residual knock-on negativity can last awhile. Last season, when we had a poor pre-Christmas run, and the knives were out for Warburton, there were a few in the "Bring in Joey, he'll sort 'em out!" camp.

People kept saying that about him until it became clear that he wasn't 'sorting them out' and instead spent the last two months of the season slating the squad and his predecessors, damning the club's achievements with faint praise (seriously, our handful of promotions may seem small beer to someone with an England cap and a career spent in and just below the top flight but get fucked mate) and washing his hands of any responsibility for the disastrous run of results that saw us fall from 19th/20th to rock bottom and relegated with two games left.

At that stage the party line became "nobody could have done better with this squad" despite the fact that his two sacked predecessors had in fact done better with that squad.

I remain utterly perplexed by the cult that exists around him whereby he is given a free pass for awful performance as well as awful behaviour.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/mc_of_a/status/1422980549640077322?s=21

[Gas In Name Only]

Good grief.

[Gas In Name Only]

The twitter reaction to that tells me it's a 35-50k job being advertised. It also tells me this kind of thing is fairly normal in football. But even so, that's awful

It's every day atm. The other day the owner (who doesn't tweet that often) wished a happy birthday to a supporter who has previously been convicted of racial abuse and was a known member of the BNP.

BRFC, just stfu for a while yeah?

[Gas In Name Only]

First home game in nearly 18 months with fans last night and it's not clear whether this tape was meant to be protecting the manager from the fans or vice versa

https://twitter.com/Dodgy_Lino/status/1425163858877026310

[Antepli Ejderha]

Every time there's a post on this thread I'm hoping it's the one to announce he's been sacked.

I'm disappointed again.

[Gas In Name Only]

Every time there's a post on this thread I'm hoping it's the one to announce he's been sacked.

I'm disappointed again.

Don't be daft, this is Rovers we're talking about. We'll only sack him once we've settled comfortably into the bottom six of the league and/or the next assault has taken place

[Gas In Name Only]

https://twitter.com/bbcbristolsport/status/1425879097557803011

Here's Barton saying that we can't expect to see any results from him until he's been in the job ten months

Absolutely phoning it in

[Simon G]

I wasn't at the game on Tuesday but, by all accounts Rovers were dire. We're don't have a particularly big squad, but were comfortable having made 8 changes to our team that played in the League last Saturday, including one player making his first non-JPT debut.

[Gas In Name Only]

I wasn't at the game on Tuesday but, by all accounts Rovers were dire. We're don't have a particularly big squad, but were comfortable having made 8 changes to our team that played in the League last Saturday, including one player making his first non-JPT debut.

I wasn't either but have heard the same. Not our full strength XI BUT 1) why have we got so many injured players when we managed about three pre-season friendlies? 2) oh look, a handy opportunity for JB to blame the few remaining squad members from last season for the defeat and keep the grift going.

I'm not sure what outrages me more, the fraudulent way this bloke is claiming a living or the fact that a not insignificant section of our fans and the club owners are quite happy to go along with it

[Gas In Name Only]

Happy to hear that Liam Sercombe was given a good reception though. Could be maddeningly inconsistent but I'd kill for someone anywhere near that good and honest in the squad now. Not that Barton would want to risk having anyone more popular than him at the club anyway

[Simon G]

He's been fantastic for us and was so good last season. He's started this season really well also.

[Gas In Name Only]

https://twitter.com/Govey24/status/1426548321812983816

I am so sick of this

[Sean of the Shed]

Fucking hell it's the Bullshit rodeo made real. It's the same cultist mindset that voters refuse to accept that Johnson is doing anything other than the best he can.

[Gas In Name Only]

Fucking hell it's the Bullshit rodeo made real. It's the same cultist mindset that voters refuse to accept that Johnson is doing anything other than the best he can.

Yeah it's exactly that. Zero evidence that he's making any headway, nor that he can fulfil his promise - repeated today - that we will go up this season. The best anyone can manage is that "he did OK at Fleetwood". The rest is Kool Aid drinking subscription to his motormouth pronouncements in which he tells everyone what they want to hear, humiliates his players and slags off his predecessors (who did better than he's doing and fuck me they set a low bar)

[Gas In Name Only]

He was going on about Ernest Shackleton today and how our situation isn't as bad as being stuck in the Antarctic for two years. Yeah thanks for that Joseph. He also talked about it taking time to turn the Titanic around - missing the salient fact that the Titanic didn't turn at all, it fucking sank, the most famous sinking in history in actual fact.

Just over 7k in today for the first full capacity game in 18 months, which is crap tbh, I'd have expected 9k+ in other circumstances. People who were there reckon it looked like even fewer, which suggests a number of season ticket holders were absent. Holidays maybe but I know of a few who are boycotting until he's sacked, jailed or cleared

[Amor de Cosmos]

Notice Clint Hill has quit as Joey's assistant for "personal family reasons." Hmm. It's always seemed a bit odd as to why Clint, who comes across as a really good bloke in every respect, has stuck with Barton for so long. Frankly I'm glad he's gone, I'm sure he could do better elsewhere.

[Gas In Name Only]

Hill's departure could be what they say it is I guess but it came out really weirdly - as in somebody tipped off the Post reporter to ask about it in the post match presser, Barton said that he'd left and the club put out a tweet immediately afterwards to announce. Almost as though nobody wanted to talk about it until the paper pushed the issue.

Even if they are best mates, I guess sharing a flat with Barton for months (which they have been since February) would wear anybody down what with all the book discussions and blaming everybody else for not taking the recycling out

[Uncle Ethan]

On the court reporting issue, unless the law has changed you get privilege for accurate reporting (unless orders are made to contrary on reporting specific issues). Privilege is forfeited if you misquote etc.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Exeter 4-0 up after 24 minutes, how can this be spun any other way? Hope he does the decent thing and resigns. He won't though.