AOB: Joey Barton - shut it

When I was a nipper, my role model was the great Sir Steve Butler.

SSB always seemed like the kind of guy I'd like to be when I grew up, minus the slightly dodgy hair cut of course; He was unruffled, affable, scored goals for fun, and generally seemed like a cool dude. Then he upped sticks to Gillingham, citing the travelling time to and from his Kent home as the reason, and later in his career compounded this insult by joining P*sh. I felt used and let down.

The moral of this sad story kids is that footballers generally aren't very useful role models. The good players, like my Steve, will move onto other things, and the bad ones will malinger on until they have de-generated so much that you can't remember why you liked them in the first place. Like Andy Duncan. Either way, you get left with a bit of a bad taste in your mouth.

This is why I raise a big cynical eyebrow in the direction of Joey Barton, after he stated today, ahead of his return from a seven match ban, that he'd like to become a role model for children.

Barton, whose litany of offences both on and off the pitch is well documented elsewhere, told the BBC: "When I speak from experience about the things I've done wrong in my life and how I've tried to change them, I think they respect that. Hopefully I'll be able to reach them people who, maybe before, were a little unreachable."

Admiriable sentiments, but of course we've heard it all before from the Newcastle midfielder. Only last year he did an in-depth interview with the Inside Sport programme, telling us how he knew he was his own-worst enemy, and that he'd changed, and that he'd got a raw deal etc etc. Unfortunately there's been little evidence of this so far.

Unlike some, I have no problem with giving Barton as many chances as he needs to get his life in order, be that two, five, or 500. However, I do think that before he starts talking about what he can do for other people, he would be well advised to get his head down, do less talking in the media, and make sure he is doing as much as he can to help himself, otherwise this could turn out to be another false dawn where he's concerned.