With Newcastle United hosting QPR this afternoon, Joey Barton is poised to make his first return since leaving the club three-and-a-half years ago. Chief Sports Writer Scott Wilson assesses the controversial midfielder’s time on Tyneside and examines why he remains so popular

FOOTBALLING philosopher, social media guru, convicted criminal and occasional central midfielder; few players polarise opinion quite as readily as Joey Barton.

From appearing as a panellist on Newsnight to provoking opinion on his personal website and amid his 2.7m Twitter followers, Barton has rarely been far from the headlines since leaving Newcastle United in the summer of 2011.

The one thing he hasn’t done a lot of in that time is play football, at least in the Premier League, so when he travels to St James’ Park later today with the rest of a QPR squad desperately attempting to haul themselves out of the relegation zone, he will find himself making his first return to the club that was responsible for some of the most chequered times of his career.

Where on earth do you start with an assessment of Barton’s time at Newcastle United? The inside of a Merseyside prison cell perhaps, where Barton found himself for 77 days in 2008 as he served a six-month sentence for his part in a brutal assault in Liverpool city centre the previous December?

Given the furore surrounding Ched Evans’ possible return to football following a prison sentence for rape, it is striking now just how readily Barton was assimilated back into the fold at Newcastle. There were calls for him to be sacked in the immediate aftermath of the court case, but he resumed his career almost instantly upon his release, even though an FA investigation into another assault on his former Manchester City team-mate, Ousmane Dabo, was still hanging over his head.

“Of my time at Newcastle, there were dark days,” said Barton yesterday, a statement that is undoubtedly true. The criminal conviction was the starkest illustration of the 32-year-old’s darker side, but it was hardly the only one during his four years in Newcastle colours.

There was the admission of alcoholism and subsequent association with the Sporting Chance Clinic, a relationship that appears to have helped the midfielder turn his life around. There was the petulant red card at Anfield in the final month of the relegation campaign, a “coward’s tackle” according to Alan Shearer and the precursor to a dressing-room bust-up with Shearer and Iain Dowie that briefly resulted in a club suspension.

There was also the messy manner of his departure for QPR, with Barton turning down the offer of a new contract at St James’, claiming that he had been undervalued, and forming part of a dressing-room clique that was regarded as unhelpfully powerful within the corridors of power at St James’.

Given all of that, not to mention the fact that Barton’s Newcastle career featured a relegation and saw successive injuries result in just 68 league starts over a period of four years, it could be assumed that his time on Tyneside would be regarded as a failure for all concerned.

Yet when he walks onto the St James’ Park turf this afternoon, he will be greeted as a long-lost son. For all his foibles, both on and off the field, Barton remains one of the most popular Newcastle players from the last decade.

Songs are still sung about him, and he is feted in a manner that does not apply to countless players who achieved far more in a black-and-white shirt.

Why? Primarily because he understood what the supporters want from a Newcastle player – unwavering commitment, loyalty to the cause and a spiky disregard for authority that had a powerful resonance at a time when fan discontent with the Mike Ashley regime was at its peak.

Barton is one of the few people to have openly challenged Ashley – if anything, his disregard for former managing director, Derek Llambias, was even more intense – and his refusal to toe the party line stands in marked contrast to the acquiescence displayed by manager Alan Pardew.

“I never signed for Mike Ashley, and I do not think if I had had a conversation, I would have signed for him,” he said yesterday. “I don’t know...”

Unafraid to speak his mind, Barton was censured for demanding more investment into the team during a pre-season interview at Leeds United and eventually ostracised for refusing to be bullied into signing a new contract. All the while, the supporters were on his side rather than Ashley or Pardew’s.

Things might have been different had he not been living up to his billing on the field, but for all that his discipline occasionally went awry, it was impossible to question Barton’s commitment or passion in a Newcastle shirt.

He was a player who quite visibly gave everything – something that supporters of all persuasions warm to – and his leadership qualities were such that Pardew briefly gave him the captain’s armband towards the end of his Magpies career.

He could also play a bit, and performances such as the one he delivered in the unforgettable 5-1 win over Sunderland, or via his two goals in the equally memorable 4-4 draw with Arsenal, led to him being touted for a recall to the England squad.

“Other things have happened with Joey, but people forget what a good footballer he is,” said Pardew. “In terms of his tweeting, and everything else he does, none of that bothers me, it is what he does on the pitch – and he does it very well.

“If you work with Joey, he has an opinion on everything and he likes to express that. He always made me laugh or made me think. I didn’t 100 per cent categorically disagree with him, but he has an opinion and you have to admire that. But he gets overlooked for what a good player he is.”

Since leaving Newcastle, his career has stalled, even though a loan spell in France with Marseille proved a somewhat unexpected success.

On the field, he has struggled to hold down a place in the QPR first team. Off it, he has continued to champion Newcastle’s cause on social media, poking fun at Sunderland and their supporters and displaying an obvious affection for his time on Tyneside.

“I signed up to be part of a side I felt was going somewhere, but the lie of the land changed very quickly,” said Barton. “The one thing which remained constant throughout was my relationship with the supporters.

“I think even when I was struggling, not playing so well or out injured, they knew every time I took the shirt on my back, I played with everything I had.”

Recognition of that fact will be apparent this afternoon.