Joey Barton on how twitter helped me tell my side of the story

He might get a lot of criticism over both his football and his tweeting abilities but this morning's Times carries a great piece from QPR captain and soccer wild boy Joey Barton about his use of social media.

In it he says that that the microblogging site Twitter helped him to tell his own tale,one that the journalistic community refused tt write about

It is behind the paywall but here are a couple of extracts:

I started tweeting last May having become increasingly disillusioned with the national media: their portrayal of me, their portrayal of football, their portrayal of the world. It was not completely false, but it was terribly distorted. Not that I was a saint. I had been guilty of various crimes and misdemeanours, mainly because of drunken stupidity. I take responsibility for all that. I have been punished and rightly so.

And he continues

Twitter gave me an opportunity that I could not refuse. After years of interviews, it became clear that no journalist was willing to tell my tale. Anything I said, anything I did, was given an angle to fit in with the bad-boy image. Maybe they would be ridiculed by their peers or editors? I mean, someone would look a fool, wouldn’t they? I was an enigma..

Not sure what his former manager Neil Warnock would make of all this.After all he blamed Barton's social media comments for his recent dismissal.

You can follow Joey at @joey7barton