IT is perhaps apt that I was standing in the Plaza De Colon when I heard the Joey Barton Mushroom Cloud would be dealt with internally.

This news relayed breathlessly on Twitter caused me to gasp, first because a series of my ills have been investigated internally and these procedures are as much fun as sooking razor blades while suffering from a septic throat.

Second, internal football inquiries are no fun for those of us who want to know the precise details of The Joey Pre-Emptive Strike.

This inquisitiveness about the inquisition is not restricted to matters Bartonian. Matters Bartonian have, after all, escalated in a manner reminiscent of the last fight in Blazing Saddles which starts in a mock-up town and ends in a Hollywood commissary.

The Barton Chronicles, though, are merely another example of how fans demand every piece of info, particularly from what is regarded as the holy of holies of the dressing room.

The dressing room, of course, is as holy as a human sacrifice. It is the most brutal of places and, while suspecting that Mr Barton was involved in something more crude than a forensic exposition on the aesthetics of performance, this sometime habitue of the locker room and long-time reporter of scuttlebutt from therein has a level of tolerance towards misdemeanours perpetrated in an atmosphere of anger, fear and testosterone only replicated on Irn-Bru Cup nights on sports desks.

Most of us have shared a dressing room with characters so verbally antagonistic and physically threatening that they went on to successful careers interviewing Democrats for Fox News. It was pointless to protest at their rantings. (Pointless in the sense that if one had they would have bitten off one’s fingers).

Further up the chain, the same rules applied. Only the stakes were higher and the jibes could be lower. Survivors of the Liverpool dressing-room of the 1980s speak in hushed tones of how Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness and Alan Hansen had a wit so dry it could be used as kindling and comments so cutting they were delivered with the aid of a theatre nurse.

Ian Rush, who was a pretty decent player, once told me that his biggest battle was to convince the dressing room of his worth. He added with a smile so rueful it could have been a very sad French street that despite a gazillion goals, a trillion medals and a zillion caps he was never entirely sure he had done so.

Casual conversations with other former players leads one to a strong belief that dressing rooms could be places avoided by the manager in vexing circumstances.

There is this image of a losing dressing room being populated by characters as demoralised as those who try to make sense out of a Setterday column. That happens. The demoralisation, not the finding sense, silly.

But losing dressing-rooms can be as loud as a Cockney stag party on free-beer day in Prague. The manager may have his say, normally in decibels only previously registered by Axl Rose on the night a ferret thought it had spotted a pepperami up the singer’s kilt. And, before or after this bleaching, the players issue personal testimonies that would not find favour with Torquemada never mind the modern HR manager.

This brutality in expression has led to improved performances and may even have won leagues. But it has also claimed its victims. The fall-outs from professional football are not just the result of a deficit in ability or even dedication. Some walked away because they could not endure persistent, violent criticism.

The landscape has thankfully changed through coaches being better educated, footballers being advised that there is a limit and it stops far short of bullying and players’ unions being proactive in protecting all their members.

But it is hugely difficult to eradicate all of the posturing, macho or otherwise. Professional footballers, male or female, exist in a world where results impact on careers, where points bring both cash and the satisfaction that an unbounded ego demands.

These ugly but undeniable truths mean that there can be a blurring of the lines when it comes to what constitutes vigorous encouragement and what constitutes industrial-scale bullying. The captain who is described as “a smashing character” by his manager may be regarded by some of his team mates as a psychopath with delusions of adequacy.

Yet full and frank discussions must play a part in any elite sport. It would be perverse to expect a manager or captain to inquire of an under-performing dilettante: “I say, old chap, would you mind extracting the digit. Your lack of effort is providing a challenge for the rest of the workforce as we seek to complete the project. Any issues, of course, can be taken up privately with human resources but one seeks an improvement in performance in the short term rather than middle to long. Thank you for your attention.”

But, similarly, tolerance has to be low for public denigration towards a fellow worker.

The balance, I suspect, is still being sought. This search for equanimity is both widespread and personal. I don’t know what Joey said to Andy or to Warbs but it is apt that the inquiry is all been done internally as that may be where Joey’s career can be found.