Barton linked with move to Scunthorpe

In Sport on Tuesday, 16 August 2011

Wolf from Gladiators had a less than illustrious career on the pitch

The Outside Toilet understands that Joey Barton has been in contact with Scunthorpe United in a bid to make a fresh start to his troubled career. ‘I remember the joke about putting the arse into Marseille when they signed Chris Waddle’ Barton may have said ‘and that was great for his career.’

Barton is understood to have considered Watford originally until he realised that the ‘T’ at the front had been drawn by a team-mate in marker pen on his Panini football sticker album.

Football has a long history of players or managers signing for appropriately named teams. Perhaps the best known examples are at Arsenal, managed by Arsene Wenger who signed that Arseshaven bloke, although John Bumstead missed the opportunity by playing for Chelsea instead. Sam Rickets plays for Bolton – not an appendage, as you would be forgiven for thinking, but a grim industrial town somewhere in the North. In a similar industrial-revolution-illness/industrial-wasteland link Typhus Bramble played for Wigan. Scunthorpe, coincidentally, is also believed to be located somewhere in the North.

Some moves don’t work out, though. 70’s-sex-comedy-named-Aston-Villa-owner Randy Lerner tried to attract Andre Villas-Boas as manager before realising that Chelsea had already tapped him up for the job. He instead had to bow to pressure from the fans and employ the popular Alex McLeish. In 1995 German international Stefan Kuntz turned down the chance to play for Tottenham Hotspurs. Although Wolves managed to sign Wolf from Gladiators in the 90’s his contract was terminated soon after when he received a lifetime ban for using an oversized cotton bud tackle an opponent.