Great post. I live in finland and icehockey is familiar sport here and things that barton did at etihad are everyday routine in finnish icehockey league. I know that football is totally different thing ,but in icehockey when you hit or kick somebody in the heat of the moment you might get your ban and you serve it and thats that. Nobody didnt get hurt which is important thing and tevez was happy after he cheated our player out of the match. I believe QPR could fine barton a lot about the incident so when he get his 10-16 match ban it wont cost the club so much as we imagine. If QPR want and they find a way to terminate bartons contract i believe they will. Anyway barton dont get away with it and maybe even lose his career. IMO the whole barton case in here has become massivly over reacted and some posters have acted as agressive as barton himself after he get his marching orders.
So we've had football compared to 3 sports I like - ice hockey, where there are very clear conventions about fighting; American football, which is about to enter crisis as brain damaged ex pros start to sue and the extent of payment to players to deliberately injure opposition is also coming out; and rugby ( which I know a lot about and love) where cheating is endemic ( look at any scrum at any level) and many supporters have a huge chip on their shoulder about the popularity of football. Thankfully we are not comparing like to like and should not want or expect these games to have the same rules. The one thing I find embarrassing about football is diving and the histrionics and acting around feigning injury. For the rest of it, if you want sin bins and time penalties for violent behavior you will just get violent behavior. I am delighted that our rules and standards of behavior have given us the chance to move Barton out. One thing I am confused about - I grew up watching football late 60s and 70s, and having seen some clips recently as well as relying on an increasingly dodgy memory, it was genuinely a much harder game then ( just watch footage from the Leeds v Chelsea Cup Final replay 1970 for evidence). But the number of injuries seemed much fewer - think Forest won the League using 13 or 14 players. I can remember leg breaks taking players out of the game ( Busby and Ian Evans for us in the early 70s, both huge potential never reached) but none of this 'hamstring out for 3 games stuff. They must have played through it i suppose. There was also simulation around (Francis Lee famous for it, and Don Givens wasn't above it either). Sorry rambled a bit....
