Football is back....life good!

Last weekend saw the start of the new football season both in Spain and England. The usual suspects of Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Barcelona are all expected to continue their successes both domestically and in Europe.

Perhaps it’s the battles for the places in the Europa League or to avoid relegation that provide more excitement? Anyway nine months of excitement ahead!

One footballer who didn’t start the new season last weekend was ex Newcastle United player Joey Barton. Barton, now with London club QPR, is currently banned for 12 games for violent conduct (see youtube video below) and has become somewhat of a hate figure in the English game. 

Joey Barton has some ideas on Grammar............

However, Joey always gave 100% effort in the black and white shirt of Newcastle and opinion is split, about him, amongst the Magpies (urracas) support. Joey even tweeted the other day how much he misses playing for the Geordies (people from Newcastle). “Proper proper football fans, stadium, city…..” was his tweet as he watched Newcastle’s live televised game, from St. James’ Park, against Tottenham.

Barton has a long record of trouble dating back to his days with Manchester City and during his time at Newcastle he even served a 77 day jail term for his part in a late night fight in his home city of Liverpool.

Although recently (prior to his latest outburst) Joey has tried hard to get rid of his bad boy tag and has become somewhat of a philosopher via his Twitter account and articles for the homeless peoples charity magazine The Big Issue. Problem is some of his “tweets” have led to on-line clashes with various people including leading British journalists. All of this has led to Joey publishing his own web-site so that he can express himself more and I have to say I found it very interesting. Joey Barton Official site 

One article in particular “caught my eye” (idiom) , in it he discusses the complexity and development of English grammar and to be fair he has made some great points. I posted this on facebook the other day, but if you missed it here it is again. Joey Barton - Who's in charge of grammar?

Another football story of note is that it is great to see Caravaca FC back in business and hopefully pushing for promotion to the third tier of Spanish football. I think most people reading this will know the recent history of the club and hopefully this is a new era for football in Caravaca. So good luck to the team “we’re with Curro!”

Tony Higgins (August 2012)