Brighton’s Marmite man Ashley Barnes
Few players in Brighton & Hove Albion history have polarised opinion like Ashley Barnes. 53 goals in 170 appearances would normally be enough for a striker to be held in high regard, but there was something about Barnes that meant you either loved him or hated him. He was a bit like Marmite.
Not that you’d know that from the way that Barnes is talked about now. The passing of time has allowed the way in which Barnes’ Brighton career came to an end to be rewritten; apparently, everyone could see his Premier League potential and the Albion were clearly making a massive mistake when they sold him to Burnley in January 2014 for £750,000.
That’s some revisionism. Even the biggest Barnes lovers would not have predicted that he’d go onto become a regular starter – and scorer – for a solid, mid table Premier League side. His haters meanwhile said that Burnley had overpaid by approximately £749,999.
Brighton fans aren’t the only supporters to have been split down the middle on such dramatic lines when it comes to Barnes. When Gus Poyet paid six figures to sign Barnes permanently from Plymouth Argyle in the summer of 2010, Pilgrims fans said it was the best bit of business they had done in years to flog him for such a big fee.
When Barnes first arrived at Withdean on loan in March, it was supporters of League Two Torquay United warning us that he wasn’t good enough; Barnes had endured a goalless six game spell at Plainmoor a month before Poyet brought him in to replace Nicky Forster who himself had gone on loan to Charlton Athletic.
Even the mighty Eastbourne Borough faithful didn’t have too much good to say about Barnes – and he scored five times in eight Conference National games for them.
So, what is it about Barnes that means supporters of the club he plays for don’t always rate him? Plymouth, Torquay, Brighton, we’ve all fallen into the trap – even if those who watched him at the Amex will now try and tell you they always liked him. Why is it that football fans don’t seem to appreciate his talents until after he leaves their club?
During his time at Brighton, Barnes’ form was nearly as up and down as people’s opinions of him. He’d miss eight easy chances that a wheelchair bound grandmother could bury.
Just as you were tearing your hair out, he would then go and score a worldie volley from outside the box that could have won a Puskas Award if it wasn’t netted in the Championship in front of only 9,870 fans at Bournemouth.
That made him a frustrating player to watch – especially during the 18 months that he was paired with Craig Mackail-Smith. It was a strike force which often looked like they were having their own competition to see who could miss the easiest opportunity.
Then there was Barnes’ discipline. He was hot headed, he always played on the limits of what was acceptable and often crossed that line.
You’d find yourself finally beginning to appreciate what he was doing on the pitch, and then he’d go and do something stupid to undone all that good work.
The second half of the 2012-13 season was classic, bipolar Barnes as he veered from brilliant to utter bastard on a monthly basis.
In January 2013, he scored three goals in four games against Derby County, Birmingham City and Arsenal in the FA Cup. He then kicked off February with a straight red card after 33 minutes in defeat at Sheffield Wednesday.
Barnes had only been back from suspension for three games when he deliberately tripped over referee Nigel Miller in a 1-0 defeat at Bolton Wanderers.
It was one of the most ridiculous things you’ll ever see on a football pitch and led to a collective meltdown from the 1,202 Albion fans who had made the long journey to the Macron Stadium.
For many, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back when it came to Barnes. A brain dead red card entering the crucial final eight weeks of a campaign in which the Albion were looking to secure a Championship playoff spot. He was firmly in the hate category.
Barnes received a seven game ban. Some felt that he should never play for the club again. Poyet had other ideas though. Barnes was recalled to the starting lineup as soon as he’d served his suspension and responded with two goals and a man-of-the-match performance in a 6-1 hammering of Blackpool.
Poyet was always Barnes’ biggest cheerleader. Four goals in that initial eight game loan at the end of the 2009-10 season convinced Poyet to sign him and Barnes was one of the first names on the Uruguayan’s team sheet for the next three seasons.
The reason that Poyet so valued Barnes was because of his versatility. When he was on loan, Barnes was used as a target man, either coming off the bench for Glenn Murray or starting when Murray was injured and then suspended following a straight red card in the penultimate home game of the campaign.
Murray’s ban carried over to the start of the 2010-11 season. It was only once Murray was available for selection again that Poyet stumbled across the realisation that Barnes had this ability to play as a strange hybrid of a winger and centre forward at the same time.
Poyet could therefore use Murray as a traditional centre forward. Barnes meanwhile could support his strike partner but at the same time, cover the left flank of the pitch.
It took extraordinary fitness to carry out such duties and great tactical and footballing intelligence, something which hardly anyone associates with Barnes.
At times, it made it look like Brighton were playing with 12 men as Ashley Barnes was effectively covering two positions for the price of one.
It’s little wonder that Poyet’s League One champions dominated possession every week as they tore through the division. Barnes ended the campaign with 20 goals, an excellent return for a 21-year-old in his first season of regular first team football.
People often forget that Barnes then top scored in the 2011-12 season. That was no mean feat given he was again playing in that strange left wing/centre forward position, only this time with no Murray ahead of him and against Championship standard defenders.
Instead, that campaign is always associated with Barnes saying in a post-match interview after Wrexham away in the FA Cup that he was pleased Brighton had picked up “a big three points.” The fact that the match went to penalties should have been a bit of a giveaway that it wasn’t a league game.
Ultimately, it’s the way that Poyet deployed Barnes that is probably the reason why he was such a Marmite player. Football fans love goal scoring centre forwards; they appreciate traditional wingers who excite with pace and trickery down the line.
Barnes was neither of those. He played in a position that not many people understood. There was no glamour to it, he had to be one of the hardest working players on the pitch to make it work but he did all that for the good of the team without complaint. Just the occasional red card when he got overly frustrated.
He wasn’t particularly quick. He wasn’t that strong. He didn’t stand out from the crowd. He had to play second fiddle to Murray and then Leonardo Ulloa when it came to Brighton fans’ favourite strikers.
Craig Noone, Kazenga LuaLua, Vicente, Andrea Orlandi… there were countless players capable of playing on the left wing who Brighton supporters would rather see out there than Ashley Barnes. He was almost a Jack-of-all-trades, master of none.
Once Poyet left at the end of the 2012-13 season, Barnes’ unique position in the team disappeared. Under Oscar Garcia, it looked like Barnes would assume a role as Ulloa’s understudy for 2013-14.
Ulloa though was afflicted by suspension and injury throughout the first half of the campaign. The man from Argentina picked up a three game ban for kung fu kicking Reading’s Alex Pearce at the Madjeski Stadium in September.
Ulloa then broke a bone in his foot in his first game back against Sheffield Wednesday, ruling him out for another two months. Barnes scored six goals leading the line in Ulloa’s absence including two in a 3-1 home win over the Championship’s outstanding team that season, Leicester City.
They would prove to be his last in an Albion shirt. Barnes was out of contract come the summer and with Ulloa now fit and suspension free, he would in all likelihood have spent the next five months largely warming the bench.
So when Burnley came in and offered £750,000 for a second choice striker who could otherwise walk away on a free in the summer, selling was a no brainer – whether you were a Barnes lover or a Barnes hater.
There are no such love-hate, Marmite dynamics when it comes to how Ashley Barnes feels about his time at Brighton. He always speaks fondly of the four years he spent in Sussex, even if the feeling being beamed back from the terraces wasn’t always mutual.
“It feels like home every time I come back to Brighton, and I love playing at the stadium. I’ve got many fond memories of my time there and I still speak to many of the staff and a few of the players.”
“Winning promotion to the Championship was probably my best memory and I was very proud to get over 50 goals for the club too. Brighton is somewhere that’s close to my heart and I will follow them for the rest of my life.”
As for the WeAreBrighton.com view of Barnes? We’ll hold our hands up and say that, more often than not, we were in the dislike camp, a result of the frustration that came with watching him.
You never knew if the 90 minutes was going to bring a stupid sending off, a Guinness World Record for the number of missed chances from inside the six yard box, a brace in a man-of-the-match performance or a blockbuster volley from 35 yards.
That day at Bolton was the one time we nearly signed up as full members of the Ashley Barnes Haters Club. It’s a grim enough town to be in as it is without watching your striker get sent off for tripping up a referee at the end of a 1-0 defeat after a 5am start and 15 pints.
The beautiful thing about football though is that you can change your mind. Six years on and we can look back and laugh at the absurdity of that red card; chuckle at Barnes thinking he’d just been part of a valiant Championship victory on penalties at Wrexham; enjoy his winding up of Plymouth’s fans when he scored against his former employees at Home Park.
Absence has made the heart grow fonder. We’d happily see Barnes back at Brighton, if for no other reason than hearing Richie Reynolds announcing “Number niiiiiiiiiine, Ashley Barnes” again. We’d never eat Marmite, though.
