All new articles are now appearing in the new blog entitled 2012-13 and there will be no further updates here although all the older content from previous posts is still right here and has not been deleted.

I decided to let the latest escapades of Mr Barton die down a bit before mentioning it and seeing what the outcome was going to be of the FA hearing regarding the length of the ban for his actions in the game between Manchester City and QPR on the last day of the season.

Just in case you were living on Planet Zorg at the time, Barton and Carlos Tevez were involved in a minor fracas near the start of the second half which resulted in Barton elbowing Tevez claiming it was in retaliation because “he started it” - sounds like two small school boys. Barton's red card that followed was only really a minor part of what happened as following this he maliciously walked behind Sergio Aguero and with a serious look of intent raised his leg to knee Aguero from behind. There was then an attempted head to head with Vincent Kompany and then more and more fracas followed as Barton was being escorted from the pitch by former team mate Micah Richards as even Mario Balotelli (still on the subs bench at the time) tried to get involved.

Barton then claimed on Twitter that the reason he acted as he did was to try and get a City player red carded too by provoking a reaction. He suggested that this idea had come from a Rangers team mate although when and how this message was passed to Barton in the heat of the moment remains a mystery which makes me doubt very much its truth. This was much more just one man on the rampage having lost the plot and not the opposite with a cunning plan and completely in control of his actions. When Match of the Day aired on the BBC later that evening Barton was at it again on Twitter with his words aimed in particularly at Alan Shearer. He claimed that he could take the criticism aimed at him from Alan Hansen and Gary Lineker – but not Shearer who for a short while was his manager when Newcastle were relegated to the Championship in 2009. The two fell out when Barton was sent off with three games remaining and causing a bust-up in the dressing rooms between Barton, Shearer and Ian Dowie with Barton claiming that he was “the best player at the club”. Shearer had criticised his tackle that had caused the red card calling it “a cowards tackle”. Barton allegedly called Shearer “a shit manager with shit tactics”.

Throughout his career he has been dogged with controversy, incidents and disciplinary problems. In 2008 was sentenced to six months imprisonment for common assault and affray during an incident in Liverpool city centre. In the same year he was also given a four month suspended sentence after admitting assault occasioning actual bodily harm on Ousmane Dabo – a former team mate at City at the time.

Other incidents have continued through his time playing at Newcastle and now at QPR. These include conflicts with Gabriel Agbonlahor, Xabi Alonso, Fernando Torres and Abou Diaby amongst others. This season he began with an altercation with Arsenal's Gervinho which ended up with the Ivory Coast player getting sent off on his debut. Alex Song then stamped on Barton and received a three-match ban. On moving to QPR he soon became involved in a confrontation with Wolves Karl Henry – something that had happened before between the two and in January he was sent off after allegedly head-butting Norwich midfielder Bradley Johnson although the replays did seem to suggest that Johnson did go down extremely easily.

QPR fans started getting on Barton's back as the team continued to dice with relegation with Barton even admitting to some of the worst performances he had put in through his entire career during this spell. Rangers fans even cheered his substitution against Liverpool – a game that they would then come back to win after Barton had left the field.

So we come back to the latest and worst red card of his career against his old club Manchester City and having reviewed the evidence, in its wisdom the FA have given Barton a 12 match ban and Barton has also decided not to appeal the longevity of this suspension which in theory means that we will not see him on a field again until probably October at the earliest. On first glance the ban does make some sort of sense – three red card offences so therefore four match bans for each totalling the 12 matches. But as ex-players now working as media pundits such as Robbie Savage and Danny Mills have already pointed out that this appears to be severely harsh when you put it up against some of the long-term bans handed out recently. Take for example the Luis Suarez ban which the FA themselves described as “This act of racism has damaged the image of English football around the world”. The end result was an eight match ban – just two thirds of Barton's.

It has been said many a time that reputations follow players around and this is a classic example. Whereas Suarez has only been in this country since the beginning of this year, the FA probably do not much idea of any misdemeanour’s that Suarez has committed before coming to these shores. Barton on the other hand has continually been in the public eye throughout his career in England and I guess it is natural behaviour for a referee to believe that if a tackle is committed by Barton the same as lets say Ryan Giggs – the chances are that the referee will be a lot more lenient with Giggs as he would be with Barton.

This most recent incident – highlighted by the fact that it was such an important game for both clubs (although it really should make zero difference) and being transmitted live around the world at the time has surely now just put the icing on the cake for Barton. Any slightest glimpse of a chance that he had of proving himself a reformed character has now gone whatever he now does in the future. Will Mark Hughes keep him or even play him at QPR next season remains to be seen and if he does try to off load him will there be any takers? If QPR are going to do any better than this season they need to keep eleven men on the pitch more often - playing with ten men on nine occasions is never going to help matters. Personally, I would look to ditch him if I could (depends what is in his contract I guess) because for all the good that he does have in him, he is a targeted player. The other players know this, the fans know this and the referee's cannot avoid this too. 

Below is some video of the action. Note that at the start Paul Merson's Sky commentary is out of sync with the BBC pictures but then amazingly matches moments later - I guess that the magic of Match of the Day editing and not having the game live.

His name is Ronni Bendtsen - and he joins the ever-growing list of players that.....how can I explain it? To call him a "cheat" really undervalues that term. To me a cheat is somebody is conniving, perhaps in some ways quite clever as they have managed to bend the rules to their own advantage. But what we see here is just plain unforgivable in anybody's book. If I were Sepp Blatter I would introduce some new rules of which one would include any playing feigning an injury such as this will be banned for life, the red card is automatically rescinded  and the game is awarded to the opposition. I might even suspend the guilty team, suspend the manager and so on because only such strict actions such as these are going to rid our game of morons such as this for good. Every year we see FIFA and UEFA supporting fair play and every year we see more and more idiots such as Bendtsen still doing it and getting away with it.

After the awful scenes at Tottenham last month that saw Bolton defender Fabrice Muamba have a heart attack on the pitch and is very fortunate to still be alive and recovering today - the same thing has happened again so soon after this with the ultimate tragic circumstances where the medics failed to revive the player.


Italian Under-21 international Piermario Morosini has passed away today during a Serie B game playing for Livorno against Pescara. Tragically the player (on loan to Livorno from Udinese) has died, the match was abandoned and all other Italian matches this weekend have been postponed as a mark of respect.

How can this have happened twice in such a short period of time? After what happened to Muamba I am sure that there were many players not just in England but across the world that had extra health checks administered and clubs would have been keen with many even insisting upon these checks taking place.

Just to recap - If you are expecting a video of this incident to appear on this blog then you are wasting your time. The concept of this blog is to provide video content that might make you flinch and go "ouch - that hurt" or it might show some really stupid incidents whereby whole teams have been involved in a fight amongst themselves, the opposition or even the match officials. But the intention of this blog is not to show videos that resulted in very serious injury or even death. I am sure that these videos have been posted elsewhere and the curious and especially the morbid will track them down but they are not for this site. This article is written in respect of the actual death today of a professional footballer and no more with its intention to inform.

Strictly speaking - this video features a dust devil and not a tornado but whatever it is - it is of a violent and potentially brutal nature hence it features on this particular blog. I think it is one thing to go lets say tornado hunting following those weird weather systems and placing yourself as close as possible to the danger and then keeping your fingers crossed that the twister goes the other way at the last second. I am sure that many people do it just for the adrenallin rush - most of them must in reality be a bit nuts - in a way its a bit like a game of chicken.

In this instance though, none of these kids or anybody attending this game could have foreseen what was about to happen next. No stormy skies - in fact pretty clear and blue and from nowhere and within seconds - chaos!