Barton makes generous donation.

One way to ease the alledged £60 million debts at City is to keep hoping Joey Barton lands himself in hot water and continues to make generous donations to the MCFC fighting fund. Following the disciplinary hearing, the club have announced that he is to be fined eight weeks wages (two of which were suspended from the xmas party incident) totalling around £120,000. Interestingly, the club have also insisted he undertakes a programme aimed at anger control.
To his credit, Barton appeared quite contrite and stated 'I understand the distress I have caused to everybody concerned and want to apologise for my actions. I am grateful for the support I have received from the club and my friends and family'.
In some ways he is quite lucky to escape sacking, suspension or even placed on the transfer list, but an eight week fine is a harsh one and is probably so severe coming this soon after his previous admonishment.
The club have acted well over this episode and it does send out a strong message to the players as a group that they will not tolerate these sort of incidents - after all we're not Newcastle United are we?

Onto a story a world away from the Barton shenanigans, with news that four City greats have been nominated as possible inductees to the football hall of fame. Frank Swift, Bert Trautman, Franny Lee and of course Colin Bell have made the final seventy-five list. Managerial duo Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison are also in the fifteen strong managerial category. Also on the list with links to City are Joe Royle and Howard Kendall. Seven players and two managers will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at a ceremony in October.
It will be difficult to make the final cut as so few are being inducted, but on the face of it Trautman and Bell appear to have the best chance of being inducted due to their almost mythical status. Trautman will of course be forever linked with Cup final whilst Bell's was a talent that was cruelly cut short due to injury.
However, perhaps what would raise the biggest cheer for City fans (and certainly those who were fortunate enough to be around in the late 1960's) would be if Joe Mercer were to be inducted and it would be a fitting tribute to the man who led City to their greatest and most succesful period.