Gary Andrews

What did football fans do in an age before Twitter? Did they grab the nearest passer by demanding to know the latest on Darren Bent’s injury diagnosis? Did they grab another passer by the minute they found out news about said diagnosis because this was, you know, big news and they felt compelled to have an opinion on it? Did they, eh, did they?

Patently they didn’t and this is an absurd, faecetious example. But even the most absurd, faecetious example is often based on a modicum of truth. And while this post isn’t another tedious “Twitter is dead” article, it does contain some musings on the medium, specifically in relation to an area I know well: football.

And as we’re going with the absurd, the oblique and the poorly thought-through metaphors, let me head, temporarily, into the realms of Eric Cantona.

Imagine a fishmonger. He puts a chalk sign outside his shop saying “FRESH FISH SOLD HERE.” He steps back to survey his work. The fishmonger is also a rational and critical man. He realises the word HERE is unnecessary. The location of the shop doesn’t change, and this should be obvious. He rubs HERE out.

He looks again. If HERE is unnecessary, so is SOLD. Having a fishmonger that doesn’t sell fish is somewhat ridiculous. He rubs out SOLD. He looks again. “Surely,” he thinks, “you would assume that a fishmonger won’t be selling fish that isn’t fresh. To put up FRESH is unnecessary. It draws attention to something that should be self-evident.” He rubs out FRESH. He looks at the sign again, and takes it back inside.

This is roughly how I feel about Tweeting about football on Twitter.

I have two Twitter accounts. A personal one and @gafootbl. I created the latter largely to talk about football, as not to annoy my non-football supporting friends, and to talk about issues in football I was working on writing articles about and general opinions on the game. In the last few weeks my posting count has dropped dramatically.

I’ve always held that (bar my personal Tweeting) if you’re writing something professionally, which is roughly what @gafootbl is, then you should be telling your audience something they don’t already know or haven’t already considered. It’s increasingly hard to think of anything that can be added to the party here, bar some rather sorry looking cheese and pineapple sticks.

It started with live games. I’m very rarely at live games these days, and even rarer at games that others aren’t at. Chances are I’m watching the same game thousands of others are watching on the sofa or in the press box, and all will be tweeting roughly the same thing. Does it really need a extra person to Tweet “Oh my God, that was amazing from Messi,” or “Darren Bent LOL.”

Twitter is actually becoming an increasing distraction during games and I’ve taken to turning it off while I watch, unless it’s a truly dire game (and even then I’m likely to switch the TV off completely).

It’s increasingly difficult to focus on the match when you’ve got a large number of incredibly loud opinionated and occasionally irritating fans offering their take on a game you’re perfectly capable of watching with your own eyes. You know the type, the ones that aren’t exactly fun to sit by during a game.

Football’s a social experience, true, but it’s a lot less fun to two-screen for football than it is for X-Factor or even rugby. This may be due to the concentration levels required, and the fact that football games often game very quickly. I’m reminded of the American broadcaster who showed adverts during breaks in play at USA ’94 and ended up missing goals. Rugby, with the elongated natural breaks gives you chance to pause and draw breath.

Football has always been inherently social anyway, as is TV watching as an activity. Using Twitter is probably no different than it would be in any other social situation. If you’re in a pub by yourself, you may well decide to keep quieter when reacting to a game amongst strangers (or you may make a lot of noise – we’ve all stood by one of them). With friends or acquaintances, chances are you’ll chat a lot more. Me, I try not to chat too much if the game is engaging.

So, that’s games, which I’ve no wish to Tweet through. Then there’s breaking news. I’m no longer really a journalist, bar the odd piece of freelance work here and there to keep my hand in. I don’t have access to the wires and I’m focused more than ever on my day job, something I genuinely enjoy. Consequently, it feels a bit pointless to be tweeting or retweeting news or opinions on breaking news that’s already done the rounds for about half an hour by the time I’ve got round to seeing it.

As for actual news itself, as I say, I’m not a sports journalist. I have no really level of insight or connections to a club that I can Tweet out, unless I happen to be researching something in-depth for the occasional article. There’s others better connected to each club, either as fans or reporters, so it’s a tad pointless to weigh in with something marginally less informed.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, it’s far better to keep your mouth shut and let people assume you’re an idiot than to open it and confirm it.

And then there’s general opinions. Again, largely what I have here is no different than what half a dozen people will have already Tweeted. Sharing said opinion just feels little more than soapboxing for the sake of getting a reaction. And often I don’t mind the reaction, but it’s almost impossible to get across the nuance and analysis I want in just 140 characters.

This is more than a little problematic when you have fans of pretty much every club ready to leap on any Tweet that contains any hint of bias and isn’t meticulously balanced in just a few words (I once got taken to task by a Bridgwater Town fan because I’d gone to watch my local team as a partisan fan and hadn’t given his team enough credit for the goal. Which is a petty thing to get worked up about, but there you go).

We all know Twitter’s somewhat of an echo chamber and when you follow a lot of people all shouting that this news is TERRIBLY IMPORTANT AND YOU MUST TWEET AN OPINION ON IT. It feels a tad overwhelming, even if it’s probably largely unrepresentative of the wider world and just confined to this particular niche.

I like chatting football still, generally, but football fans and Twitter seem to have got oddly angrier and more ready to take offence these days. And, largely, shouting out into Twitter feels like shouting into a busy pub and waiting for the person who disagrees the most with you to shout back.

I’ve never liked busy pubs. I much prefer quiet pints.

Increasingly, I like Google+ for the way I can update from the same account and not annoy non-footballing people, but also for the quality of debate from the few people who populate the network – although these are very few in number.

But, but, but, you work in social Gary. You know how the web works. You know how Twitter works. If you’re not prepared to get involved, then you’re doing it wrong.

Yeah, yeah, I know. If it’s something I feel strongly about, I’ll Tweet. If there’s something I think deserves wider attention, I’ll Tweet. And if there’s somebody I want to reply to, I’ll Tweet. But these are few and far between. I honestly don’t have that strong an opinion on about 95% of football news, or I don’t have an opinion that hasn’t been retweeted plenty of times by others. So it’s easier to retweet than offer a slightly pointless rehash.

I’ve never liked writing or speaking just for the sake of writing or speaking. I still like Twitter, I still think it’s useful for finding out information or articles I wouldn’t have usually found. But in terms of Tweeting, I’m using it less broadcast my opinions. Chances are, I’ll just be retweeting my agreement, at best.

Oddly, despite the echo chamberness of Twitter, it’s only really football where I’ve felt this. Well, maybe politics, but that’s something I really make a point of avoiding getting involved in due to its inherent unpleasant tribal nature. Other interests or other echo chamber moments, such as TV and the like, doesn’t quite feel the same. Is it just me, or have you had similar thoughts and feelings in other industries?

written by Gary \\ tags: football, Twitter, two-screen, twoscreening