A ONCE-PROMISING footballer pretended to be a Premiership star when he was found drunk and asleep in the back of a bus.

Matthew Haymer was abusive to the driver and to an ambulance crew and police officers who were called to deal with him.

Haymer told paramedics he was Newcastle United bad boy Joey Barton and earned more in a month than they would in a lifetime.

The 20-year-old pointed to the NHS logo on their suits and said it stood for "Nasty Horrible Sh***", Teesside Crown Court heard.

He told the two crew members he paid their wages, they should show him respect and said they were not fit to be in his presence.

When police arrived on the bus, Haymer continued to be aggressive and said: "F***ing arrest me, you f***ers. I've done f*** all."

The outburst placed Haymer in breach of an antisocial behaviour order.

The asbo was designed to stop him being abusive or drunk and ban him from Darlington town centre at night and being in pubs.

A month after the bus incident, Haymer - a former Sunderland youth team player with what seemed a glittering future - breached the order again.

He was abusive to staff members at Eastbourne sports complex when they asked him to leave because he had been barred from the site.

A further breach was committed just before Christmas last year when Haymer was found in Darlington town centre after 8pm.

His barrister, Martin Towers, told the court: "He stands to be sentenced for obnoxious, cheeky behaviour towards those in authority."

Haymer, of Oaklands Avenue, Darlington, admitted flouting the asbo three times and breaching the terms of a suspended jail sentence.

Judge Peter Fox imposed a community order and extended the length of the suspension as he gave Haymer a final chance.

"I may be wrong, we will have to see, " the judge told him. "This is hanging over you, so you are the one who is going to decide.

"When sentencing you, two words come to mind - words of your generation, not mine - and they are attitude and disrespect.

"You seem to have a lot of attitude, you seem to have a lot of disrespect and people of your generation, as I understand it, set high value on those two things, but you have not done that.

"You failed again and again and again."

Mr Towers said: "His offending can be summarised as being in the way of the immature behaviour of a young man who needs to grow up, and grow up quickly.

"His high hopes in relation to a football career have been dashed. He has not, at least at the present, been able to fulfil the potential seen in him by better judges than me."