Toxic turd Barton was unfit to manage Bristol Rovers

I started from a place of loving the sound of Al Qadi caution, politeness, dignity, moderation, and communication.

When the Al Qadis took over the club, after DC's Rovers had been promoted back into the football league and were in the process of building a campaign for promotion to our home division; that season ended with many of us feeling the most positive and excited we had been towards Bristol Rovers for a long time, ever in the case of younger or newer supporters.

Attendances over 10,000 have always mattered to me too, and the Al Qadis, later Wael Al Qadi, did make some minor improvements to communications, commerce, and the ground's interior.

DC resigning from Walsall during our latest twice-yearly management recruitment cycle, worsened by Harry Degg's fake news about his return to Bristol, gave me hope that we might be spared the social media celebrity and criminal psychopathy of Joey Barton.

I don't know that DC returning would have worked out very well, but I don't think the club's treatment of the last manager (and possibly his predecessors too) will have given them a queue of fine managers holding application forms. If I were a promising league manager, Rovers wouldn't be a club I'd trust as an employer.

It would, however, have brought us together somewhat, rather than tearing us apart.

Watching Rovers trying to bore their way out of the football league under Ray Graydon never made me feel like this. Nick Higgs turning Rovers into a laughing stock twice-yearly sacking managers until relegation until floating an appeal against this relegation while litigating against a supermarket giant who no longer wanted to buy the Memorial Ground... still I never turned my back.

Only Al Qadi showing that the cautious, polite, dignified, and moderate impression I had admired was nothing more than a mask, in fact being a vainglorious stargazer so blinded by the cult of celebrity he considers a boastful convicted thug awaiting further trial for knocking a tooth from another football manager an acceptable leader of Bristol Rovers Football Club, only this has disgusted me enough to give it all up for now.

The Emporer was incorrect to say that Barton's support of Corbyn was a relevant complaint against his appointment. But he did stumble on a point. Barton has something in common with Corbyn, Trump, Morgan, Farage, Sarkar, and so many other social media celebrities. They are famous, not for being any good, not for being decent or trustworthy, not for competence, not for wisdom, but only for being 'big', and for a vacuous vitriol they have marketed effectively to solicit the clicks and internet traffic of a credulous audience who read neither books nor even newspapers, but only their own echo-chambers of online news feeds.

I certainly don't think the United States should ever elect a Trump figure again, nor should the Labour party ever elect a Corbyn figure again. Bristol Rovers should never appoint a Barton figure again, and Al Qadi should hang his head in shame for having done so.

I hope their time is passing. Decency and dignity can rise again.

It's such a shame I'm writing this on a Bristol Rovers forum. Many of you think I'm a idiot for taking this position, according to your insults above. Good riddance, you may say. But the feeling is not mutual. I don't want rid of you at all. I cannot support Joey Barton's Rovers, but I don't criticise you for doing so. I look forward to the day we have a board and most importantly a manager, whether successful or failing, whom we can all support without holding our nose.

I don't want to see Rovers relegated, but I do want to see Joey Barton's Rovers lose as many games as possible so that he goes. If that means the fall of Al Qadi too, then so be it.

If Rovers win today, then I hope active supporters enjoy it, but if Rovers losing means we can all support Rovers together without compromising any of our fundamental principles, then that's fine by me.

So come on the Shrews, and come on the October takeover.