On This Day – 19th December
Christmas can be an expensive time of year for everyone. The actions by Joey Barton at the Manchester City Christmas Party on this day in 2004 cost the midfielder £125,000 and a lot of bad press.
Barton and James Tandy (a member of the reserve team) got involved in a bit of trouble at the party. For some reason, Tandy set fire to Barton’s shirt who responded by stabbing a lit cigar in Tandy’s eye!
This is hardly acceptable behaviour for anybody, let alone two Premier League footballers and the club came down hard with their punishment. Barton was fined £60,000 and also had to pay £65,000 in damages to Tandy, who was left with permanent scarring following the attack.
Controversy seemed to follow Joey Barton throughout his career. He was given a couple of prison sentences, lashed out at several opponents and team mates and received several lengthy bans. As well as this, he had several altercations with opposing fans and picked up quite a few fines throughout his career.
James Tandy’s career never really took off after the incident. He was released by City and played in Denmark, Bangkok and dropped down to becoming a semi-professional in Australia. He then moved back to England play in non-league, most notably for Salford City.
After his career took a downward spiral, Tandy took to gambling and alcohol and in 2016 was given a suspended jail sentence after attacking his girlfriend.
Following the 2004 incident, Joey Barton had quite a successful playing career. He stayed at Manchester City until 2007 before moving to Newcastle United, QPR, Marseille, Burnley and Glasgow Rangers. He won an England cap in 2007 in a friendly against Spain and has been the manager of Fleetwood Town since April 2018.
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