STAN COLLYMORE Boy’ Barry settled for a quiet life.. now he’s reaping the rewards
CARAMBA, CARABAO! JOEY OFF THE MARK
Follow us on Twitter: @peoplesport WHEN Gareth Barry first arrived at Aston Villa from Brighton, I was one of the senior pros in the dressing room.
I was living the celebrity lifestyle at the time, I had the glamorous girlfriend and barely a day went by when I wasn’t in the tabloids for one reason or another.
I used to warn Gareth and Lee Hendrie, who was coming through at the same me time, not to follow my lead.
I’d tell them the best course of action for a long and fulfilling career was to go down a different route, to follow a more puritanical path.
Lee, of course, completely ignored me and went ent on a turbo-mission to do everything g I’d told him not to.
But Gareth reth realised that, actually, it was somee quite decent advice, and almost twoo decades on here he stands on the brink rink of breaking Ryan Giggs’s recordecord number of Premier League appearances. ppearances.
Milestone
I have obviouslybviously had nothing to do with him reachingeaching such a milestone, a milestone one he will pass at the Emirates tomorrow when he plays his 633rd game.
But what at it does go to show is that by being a good pro, doing the right thinghing at the right times, gettingetting there early, finishing shing late, cleaning yourour plates and cleaning ing your spec – yourr part of t he dressinge s s i ng room – can n lead to massivesive things.
During my days at Nottingham m Forest and d Liverpool I’d heard the Newcastle lads referring to Lee Clarke and Steve Howey as ‘Boy’.
It was a term of affection for two youngsters with very promising careers ahead of them, but also a nickname that was designed to ensure they knew their place in the team. So I dubbed Gareth the same at Villa and it stuck among the rest of the lads. Who would have thought that ‘Boy’ – a shy, quiet lad with that mop hair of his – would go on to play more matches than any of us?
It has been a pleasure watching him grow and mature over the years into the player and man he has become. He has played for some fine teams with Villa, Manchester City, Everton and now West Brom. And also of course for England, for whom he won 53 caps and
really should have won more.
Kicking
It annoys me that some England fans still bring up the 2010 World Cup defeat by Germany in Bloemfontein, when Mesut Ozil ran away from him in the 4-1 defeat. He got a kicking after that but people conveniently forget he’d been injured in the build-up to the finals and only came back for the second group game. It’s typical that we knock people rather than celebrating the fact that we had an English footballer who could play multiple positions – centre- half, left- back, central midfield – very well. Speak to any of the players Gareth has shared a dressing room with and you wouldn’t hear a bad word about him.
On a personal level, I will be for ever grateful to him for coming to a party I threw to celebrate my 34th birthday.
I’d been retired from foo football for three-and-a-half years by thenth and was struggling a bit with mental health issues at the time.
I was a little bit lost havin having hung up my boots and not yet em embarked on my career in the media.
Gareth came along to my bashba even though we hadn’t seen each othero for a few years, we had a good cha chat during the night and it really meant a lot to me.
I interviewed him recently and he remains a down-to-earth lad who has been completely unaffected by the trappings of his success.
He has played for som some great teams, won medals, won a all those caps for his country, which i is what I would call a properpro c career.
I am v very pr proud of what he has achieve achieved and I am proudprou to call him a fr friend. WE have known for a long time that there are too many games in the calendar, so let’s be brutally honest and say the League Cup needs to go.
Currently called the Carabao Cup, it is actually my favourite final – much less fussy than the FA Cup.
But the FA, UEFA and FIFA need to look at a real scaling down of all tiertwo tournaments and, I am afraid to say, they should scrap it.
While they are at it, they need to get rid of post-season tournaments as well.
And let’s just have a proper, thought-out calendar where fans get enough football to watch without being bludgeoned by it every day.
As long as we make sure there is a proper reward for clubs winning proper trophies and that clubs lower down the leagues still get the opportunity for pay-days in the big cup ties, everyone will be happy. MY old muckers at talkSPORT were forced to apologise to Everton on Thursday over claims made by Joey Barton the previous week.
Specifically, over their failure to bring in a new striker during the transfer window and about divisions in the recruitment process.
My understanding is that the chairman, the owner, the director of football and manager Ronald Koeman (above) all worked closely in their bid to land a new hitman but that they couldn’t get the right deal over the line for a variety of reasons.