Media Singing the same old Toon

In the post Wednesday dissection of Cescs' tackle his subsequent apology doesn't seem to be good enough. Joey Bartons apology for deliberately punching another player is okay though. Is that because he's a footballing hard man?

In the modern game there have been so called hard men, some of whom could play and some of whom were more clumsy oafs than thugs. Then we have Newcastle United, the wonderful friendly, everybody’s second club from The Tyne. Having been to Newcastle to watch Arsenal I have to say that those Newcastle fans I met were completely friendly and nice. What the club seem to be is an opposite of those fans.

Has there ever been a selection of such unbridled thugishness, rank stupidity and general nastiness than the set of players who have turned out for NUFC during the Premier era, not to mention players that got up to law breaking shenanigans off the pitch. General bad eggs seem to rock up at St James Park.

Here's a set of them that combine affray, assault, probation, red cards, car crashes, shooting, gambling addiction, drug addiction, racism, car crime and general unpleasantness.

Craig Bellamy

Lee Bowyer

Joey Barton

Keiron Dyer

Jonathon Woodgate

Duncan Ferguson

Mickey Quinn

Keith Gillespie

Lee Clark

Jermaine Jenas

Patrick Kluivert

Tino Asprilla

Alan smith

Andy Carroll

Paul Gascoigne