John Barnes and the curse of 'shitism'

Ah Johnny Barnes – the scouts of AC Milan may not have recognised you but I remember you dancing round the Brazil team in the Maracana. What became of you?

A football idealist, if you are being polite, a muppet if you are being honest. Actually scratch that: for the fans of Tranmere would probably rather have had Fozzy and Kermey doing the teamtalks rather than Scouser McAteer and Barnesy. Jase and John would be more suited to an ITV show about ex footballers retraining as cops.

Steakout, McAteer style

You could see them, sitting in a clapped-out Sierra eating doughnuts and talking about away ties in the League Cup. Old Barnesy's problem with management appears to be that he attempted formations that he found off Footy Manager.

You know the ones: they look pretty on the screen but even a four year old knows their daft. They make pretty pictures but would look daft even if performed by a dance troupe. Some of them didn’t even add to ten, so we’re told. After Barnesy got the Highland fling at Celtic (dumped out the cup at home by Inverness), we all thought that it was it for him and the manager’s chair. He tried the studio chair too but even Channel 5, which counts Steven Seagal films as documentaries, couldn’t take his pisspoor delivery (the free kicks were so much better pal).


Then poor John, out of work and the ego gestating, goes and claims on the BBC that the reason he isn’t getting work is because of racism.....oh dear, the last refuge of the scoundrel that. No John, you were the victim of another form of prejudice...shitism.

Yes, the prejudice against people who are pish at their jobs: they don’t understand tactics, don’t know who the opposition is, don’t know a single other player in the division their managing in and attempt to teach clog-footed journeyman left-backs how to do Cruyff turns! It be the bane of our times, shitism.

Now this time poor Johnny surely won’t make a comeback. Notwithstanding Notts County, Hearts and another such maniac clubs, Barnsey is done for.

He is just one of those guys that has to do it his way, Even if he cleaned the kit, you imagine he’d use an experimental dye and create the kind pink ensemble Scotland used to wear. With his penchant for incompetence, there can only be one place for old Barnsey...Westminster!