Joey Barton is a playground bully who shouldn’t get back in the game after Bristol Rovers sacking

GOOD riddance to Joey Barton after he was finally sacked by Bristol Rovers.

The gobby former Manchester City and Newcastle star is a nasty piece of work that is toxic for football.

In an era where the English game is more welcoming and inclusive than it has ever been, Barton is a dinosaur that should be put out to grass.

When he branded Stevenage boss Steve Evans “a fat man” and “weeble” after their 1-1 draw on Tuesday night, it was the latest in a long list of diatribe he has spouted through the years.

Like the vast majority of people, I remember back in my school days how bullies would cruelly target someone because of their weight. 

Evans has personally brushed the whole thing off because as the Scot told me over the weekend he has “no interest in Barton or what he stands for.”

However, imagine how children who are being picked on at school because of their size reading those Barton comments might feel — or adults who have mental health issues caused by obesity.

Also picture a youngster who is misguided enough to hold Barton up as a role model thinking it’s OK to target someone because of their appearance.

To have a manager poking fun at someone for being “fat” flies in the face of all the work, support and campaigns that have been launched across the EFL to help tackle the growing UK obesity problem — not to mention all their mental health initiatives.

Bristol Rovers themselves support the flagship EFL project called Fit Fans, which is a free 12-week course aimed at men and women in the 36-65 age bracket, in which participants receive nutrition, wellbeing and health advice alongside a fitness programme, which has yielded great results.

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I wonder what these Rovers fans trying to lose weight made of their former manager’s comments?

Barton is that classic playground bully. 

Just look at how he treated 24-year-old Rovers midfielder Luke Thomas last month after a 2-0 defeat at Peterborough for example.

Joey Barton is that classic playground bully

Justin Allen

Barton hung his player out to dry after he continued to play on despite feeling his hamstring — holding him responsible for conceding the second goal before going into a post-match media rant.

During his lengthy monologue, he branded Thomas: “One idiotic young boy, I can’t even call him a man.”

He said: “Two minutes into the second-half his side is compromised because he can’t run, he feels the hamstring.”

That is rich coming from a man whose own poor decision making during his playing career “compromised” his team-mates goodness knows how many times.

At QPR he famously got sent-off for elbowing  Manchester City’s Carlos Tevez with the score 1-1 in their final game of the 2011-12 season in which they needed a point to guarantee Premier League survival.

The 10 men were left to battle for the final 35 minutes and even moved 2-1 in front before Eden Dzeko and Sergio Aguero scored in injury-time to clinch City’s first league title since 1968.

QPR were spared relegation because Bolton could only draw 2-2 against Stoke.

He compromised his team in 2015 when he was sent off for QPR after throwing a punch at Hull’s Tom Huddlestone.

Barton let Newcastle down when he got sent off for taking out Liverpool’s Xabi Alonso in 2009 — ruling him out of the team’s final three games which saw the Toon go down to the Championship by a single point.

I wonder how Sean Dyche felt at Burnley after he gave Barton a chance late in his career only for the player to get suspended for six months by the FA for gambling.

And while branding Thomas, aged 24, as an “idiotic young boy”, Barton seems to forget he was a violent young thug who, aged 22, stubbed a cigar in young Manchester City player Jamie Tandy’s eye. 

Then, only a few years later, he had a fight with Ousmane Dabo — causing head injuries to his team-mate including a detached retina.

But not only is Barton a bully and a hypocrite, he is sexist too.

Let’s not forget this man went on BBC Question Time and described 2014 European election winners UKIP to one of their female MEPs as the best of “four really ugly girls” in comparison to the three main political parties at the time. 

And that misogynistic side of Barton reared its head again earlier this month when he claimed former Newcastle boss Kevin Keegan was “bang on” for saying he doesn’t “like listening to ladies talking about the England men’s team”.

I’m surprised Joey didn’t go the whole hog and demand these women should remain at home  getting dinner on the table for the men after the match.

I wonder how he will one day explain this to his nine-year-old daughter? God forbid, if she ever wants to become a football pundit or presenter! That would send him into a spin.

Barton has been given so many chances down the years but never seems to learn from the errors of his ways.

His toxicity takes football back to the dark old days and frankly no club chairman should entertain recruiting this man ever again.

It is time to show Barton the red card once and for all.

Lay off the Roo boos

YOU have to feel for Wayne Rooney being booed and having verbal abuse aimed towards him at Birmingham.

The new Blues boss has lost all three of his matches so far since taking over from John Eustace, who had the team flying.

That decision to sack Eustace with the team sixth after 11 games was bonkers to the extreme.

Rooney has been brought in to bring about a style change at St Andrew’s.

The new American owners want the team to play more on the front foot, building from the back and playing through the lines.

And the England and Manchester United legend needs time to be able to implement that.

But the buck must stop with the owners, not Rooney. It’s madness to want to go in a new direction while results are going well on the pitch.

A huge change like that should only happen during the close season.

They took over the club in July with the new campaign just weeks away from starting and should have stuck with Eustace all the while the results were going well. It’s a no-brainer. Who knows where it might have taken them this season.

They should have waited until May to bring about the change they desired.

Rooney has a big job on his hands winning the fans over. But, frankly, it should be the owners getting the flak, not him.

Mowbray loves a bit of (Red) Leicester

TONY MOWBRAY loves everything about Leicester … especially the cheese.

The Sunderland boss was waxing lyrical about the Championship leaders after his side lost 1-0 at the King Power on Tuesday.

But while he was predicting that the Foxes would be running away with promotion this season, he was clearly distracted by the huge lumps of Red Leicester sitting on a food counter yards away inside the press room.

Mowbray picked up a cardboard takeaway box before filling it with enough cheese, along with slices of ham, pickled onion and Piccalilli, to tuck into for the journey back to the north east.