A tenuous Tube link but rolling with it…
So what started as a good idea for some positive PR - down to earth England
Five years ago he’d probably have got away with it. But in a world where every comment made is replayed to millions of people around the world in very real time, there were obviously going to be repercussions.
Not a great example to set to the hoardes of English footballers currently finding extra fame for their big mouths.
Not a week seems to pass when we don’t hear about a stupid remark made on Twitter for example, most of them by footballers.
Joey Barton, Ashley Cole and even Rio Ferdinand himself have amassed large followings and all have been in trouble recently for their less than thoughtful and in Barton’s case, just plain provocative, Twitter diatribes.
Rio Ferdinand spent more of the European Championships carrying a huge chip on his shoulder that he wasn’t selected (forgetting that his own manager Sir Alex had said he wasn’t fit enough to go just days earlier), than he did supporting his ‘beloved country’. And of course, his hypocrisy knows no bounds – the ‘choc ice’ comment on Twitter was epic stupidity given the ongoing racism court case.
Last week Ashley Cole managed to lambaste the FA’s publicised findings on the John Terry case by tweeting ‘so I’m a liar am I @FA? Bunch of t**ts’ or something similar.
Honestly, if I was a football manager I’d ban my players from being on Twitter at all. They get paid enough to give up their right to the social networking site and most people are forbidden from personal opinions about the industry they work in. Can you imagine if I called my boss or the property industry body ‘a bunch of t**ts’ in such a public way? I doubt I’d ever get a job again.
Cole’s idiocy was followed by this weekend’s speciality from Barton calling for a mass cull on all stupid people…presumably including himself in this in a rare spot of self-reflection?
To be honest, any footballer that has earrings bigger than brains should welcome a ban on Twitter anyway. It seems hiding behind the tiny keyboards on their oversized gadgets gets them into trouble all too often and I, for one, would rather hear constructive and motivational tweets from athletes like our Olympians rather than whinging nonsense from over paid prima donnas with a chip on their shoulder.
Rant over and back to commuting stuff next blog…unless something else gets my goat in between!
Laura King is the author of The Little Book of Tube Etiquette, published by Gibson Publishing and available from Waterstones, WH Smiths and most online retailers.
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