Everyone remembers their first job and, as a manager, Joey Barton's came at Fleetwood Town. On Saturday, he will face his old club for the first time since being sacked in January 2021 as Bristol Rovers host the Cod Army at the Mem.
Transitioning from playing to coaching, a learning curve for Barton began in 2018 at Highbury Stadium. The high point came just six months before he was sacked, leading perhaps the smallest club in the division into the play-offs.
Fleetwood were beaten over two legs by Wycombe Wanderers, the side that was promoted via the play-offs, and when the turn of the year arrived Barton was out of a job. Reflecting on facing his old club, he says there is no ill feeling and he remains thankful for his first opportunity in the dugout, but he does look back with a shade of disappointment about how things played out.
However, he believes Fleetwood owner Andy Pilley did him a "favour" by sacking him. Barton believes there were differences in ambition by the time his tenure on the Fylde Coast came to an end with Fleetwood 10th in the table, three points off the play-offs.
Former Sunderland and Leeds United manager Simon Grayson was announced as his permanent replacement later that month and the Cods finished 15th in the third tier. Barton swiftly took over at Rovers and he could not prevent them from being relegated, finishing bottom of the table, but he led the Gas back to League One at the first time of asking last season.
"I should have signed the three-year extension that was put under my nose, so it’s part of my learning," Barton joked.
"We had a discussion. They wanted to renew my deal and I wanted all the people who worked for me to benefit. He didn’t want to do that and I decided not to sign as I felt it would have been the wrong signal for me to sign a new deal and not uplift the staff who got me there.
"I think that was the first crack. He realised I wasn’t going to sign an extension, so he decided to accelerate me out in January. I accept that.
"I felt I got to a point… I’m probably the only manager to get removed for having more ambition than the owner, that’s the reality. I know his core business was hit with COVID, but my belief at the end of the second season when we missed out in the play-offs was we could get Fleetwood promoted to the Championship.
"I felt we needed support in that and I was told at the time every penny we brought in through player sales would be invested and, obviously, that turned out not to be how it went. It wasn’t disingenuous, I think it was outside factors – core business being affected and pounds becoming tighter. It just changed.
"I think even if we stayed beyond January, we felt the group was just started coming to the fore. I think Andy wanted someone in who he could pick the team and wouldn’t say anything about it.
"He knows there was absolutely no way that was happening on my watch and I think he did me a favour in hindsight by sacking us, I really do. There would have just been very difficult conversations because my ambition for the group and being better than we were the year before would have gotten really frustrated.
"I got told late we were in an embargo. There was stuff that happened that wouldn’t have been conducive to us being on the same page going forward."
More than two years on from Fleetwood's promotion near-miss under Barton, it still crosses Barton's mind from time to time, and at Thursday's press conference he recalled a James Hill header hitting the bar at Portsmouth in the final game before COVID-19 struck. Had it gone in and Fleetwood won the game, they would have been promoted automatically on points-per-game.
Still, Barton – who joined the Gas little more than a month after departing Fleetwood – says he enjoyed his time at Highbury Stadium, although he believes the club may not have a better chance of reaching the Championship.
"I had a great two and a half years there," Barton said. "I don’t think I achieved anything there. We finished in the play-offs one year, but we never actually got the promotion.
"But I think we changed people’s perception of what a club of Fleetwood’s size could do. In reality, we were probably a global pandemic away from Fleetwood being in the Championship because if that didn’t come, there were not going to be many teams (that could stop us).
"We were on a run like Rovers were last year. You just know it’s coming, you can feel the pace gathering and we had a really good team. You look at that team now and there are loads of lads playing in the Championship.
"I’m gutted for the people of Fleetwood because the reality is it’s probably as close they will come to getting in the Championship. I don’t think they will come closer and it would have been great to leave that legacy at the club.
"Fleetwood is not like Bristol. It’s a very underprivileged area and I think it would have sent a great marker to the people in the town that everything is possible if you work hard as a group.
"We really had that small club, family community feel, and I honestly enjoyed every moment there because you could see the impact the football team made every single day when you drove to work. It’s more difficult in Bristol because it’s such a vast, multicultural city. Fleetwood is a small town and Andy Pilley probably employs a lion’s share of the population, so the football club really does sit at a very important position in the community.
"For us, it was an incredible time learning and we’re now better for it to handle these big-city opportunities and I’m incredibly thankful to Andy Pilley for giving us a chance."
Barton's time at Fleetwood was caught on camera for a yet-to-be-released documentary called The Contract, which was due to air on streaming platform DAZN but it was delayed when it emerged Barton had been charged with assaulting his wife in June 2021 – a case that was thrown out in court last week.
With the legal proceedings dismissed, the documentary is set to be released and Barton is eager for people to start streaming it, sharing his delight with the finished product.
"There has been none done like it, no one’s had the access," he said. "It’s better than all the All Or Nothings, and it’s not because I’m in it. It genuinely is because of the access we gave them.
"Think about how ballsy is in my first job. I’m like ‘Bring them in. I’m that good, bring them in, no problem’.
"That could have blown up in my face, but I was like ‘If I’m as good as I think I am, film it’ because this will be a great reference tool even if it never makes air. I watch it back and I can’t believe I was coaching, I can’t believe I was that. It has become a really important resource tool for me in terms of altering certain teaching styles.
"It catches Steve Black in there as well, there is some really good stuff with Blacky and the characters in and around the club.
"It starts as it naturally would as the Joey Barton circus, and I was like ‘I do not want this to be about me’. The owner, the town, the characters around the club, the players, the staff, it’s a fantastic documentary about what a community-based football club is in the community.
"Obviously, there are some barmy characters in there, but it’s not what you think it will be. I can’t wait for everyone to see it."
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