Blogs

A Little Card With The Bill

|
Image for A Little Card With The Bill

Good morning.

Before the the aftermath the math – and a few moments of your invaluable time in relation to Kyle Walker. Today’s sermon is entitled, ‘Abuse, When Is Good Time For You And Will There Be Light Refreshments?’

Let me kick off by saying I didn’t send Kyle a nasty Tweet yesterday. Or at any other time. To the best of my knowledge I’ve only had a pop at two footballers on Twitter.  I definitely expressed a belief to ***** that he was a wage thief. That prompted about a dozen or so 15 year olds to tell me I was a very, very mean type. A rotter. The other was aimed at Rio Ferdinand who was re-Tweeted by someone else and I think I said, ‘Get off my TL you Jar Jar Binks looky-likey.’

The fallacy is of course that we should all be nice and tolerant to each other. Apologies if I’m the first person to shatter your illusion but there isn’t a place in the world where that actually happens. So if you think you can get a billion strangers together online and achieve that utopia, good luck.

‘Walker was abused.’ He must have been. It says so in this morning’s papers. I can’t find any examples but one can imagine the type of thing he was sent. ‘You’re ___’ and variations upon that theme. I really expensive barrister would have trouble defending him from such allegations. I’ve not been alone in gently trying to break to people for months he’s not very good at playing football.

Now, ‘You’re a black ___’ isn’t on. You see that is your common or garden racism. It’s not up for debate. Mindless, not nice. Against the law.

So what level of ‘abuse’ is acceptable? Well, that’s down to the individual I guess. My argument is that it isn’t unreasonable that people can express an opinion. And therefore it doesn’t have to be pleasant. In the instance of footballers we invest emotionally and financially and when we are disappointed it’s not unreasonable to express that. Not unreasonable at all*.

*Now, at a live game it is insane to do this. Nobody was ever motivated by booing to perform better. A moot point with a number of girlfriends over the years.

So after the game, it’s open season? Well, pretty much as long as you aren’t shouting through the poor bloke’s letterbox or sending him excrement on a daily basis in the post. So no racism and no poo poo.

Right. The final whistle goes and the donkeys that have ruined your afternoon are leaving the field. ‘You’re ___’ is about what they deserve. You don’t gush thank yous and say a long goodbye in a restaurant where you’ve been served inedible muck. Well unless you’re English. Even if you don’t send a stiff letter to the owner it’s quite normal you at least glare a bit.

So what about Tweeting your displeasure?

Well as it’s a written thing let’s think of it as a letter. Who knows Kyle Walker’s address? Me neither. I guess you could send him something via the club (remembering of course the no poo poo ruling). But it’s not very immediate. By the time you’ve found something to write on, a pen that works and tried to work out who actually sells stamps these days the moment will have passed.

That’s why increasingly you get in places like pizza chains little cards with your bill. To score your experience. Because otherwise the opportunities for the pizza company to victimize their staff would be quite limited. It’s all about the immediacy. ‘Let us know how you feel!’

So players set up Twitter accounts. Most footballers are a bit thin skinned. They are actively encouraging customers thoughts to reach them. This is their ‘little card with the bill. ‘Hey guess what? Not everyone will always enjoy their meal!

Now I don’t know what the ratio of good to bad comments people receive on Twitter but the block function is there for a reason. It’s for people who want to take part – and by default take their chances – yet still exercise some degree of control.There is another option. Don’t have an account.

Self control is a two way street.

Kyle Walker closed his Twitter account that he opened because people were saying nasty things to him. Will any of those nasty Tweets encouraged him to improve as a footballer? It’s difficult to believe they will.

Is it sad that people felt the need to tell him how furious they were? Of course, but not shocking. You leave a card with your bill, it’s beyond naive to think everyone will score you a ten.

Share this article

56 comments

  • intesivlee says:

    First and not the first to send tweet feelings to a footballer!

    • jerkinmahjurgen says:

      I could’ve been first. Didn’t decline, as such, thought comments had been turned off… Walker’d it, so to speak.

  • Cuddlestone says:

    Pretty much sums it up. As someone who is baffled by the ongoing success of Twitter largely as a conduit for morons to abuse “celebs” and each other, it didn’t surprise me in the slightest.

    As for yesterday. We played well, we lost. I enjoyed it in parts. People talk, time passes. Unfortunately having briefly overtaken Chelsea in terms of quality, they have once again spent their way back back above us. I don’t blame AVB. I do blame our shooting. But that team would arguably have been improved by Kaboul, BAE, Dembele, Bale, Parker, Adebayor, and Lloris – all of whom were absent with injury, paternity, or “respecting your elders”. I didn’t end the game feeling pessimistic; and the Norfolk horse considerably improved my mood shortly after.

    • Cuddlestone says:

      And yes, the “Norfolk horse” is both a euphemism, and Grant Holt.

    • intesivlee says:

      the things we lacked were a right back a midfielder who is not as slow as my grandmother driving a robin reliant!! dembele was missed, huddlestone is not at it, at all. (just not good enough! and Walker needs to go back to basics sounds simple might just tweet about it !!

      • Chelsea racist piggies says:

        Did you see the tactical genius that is Avb in action yesterday? The way he changes to defending a lead is a masterstroke, the way he learns from his mistakes is heartwarming.

    • cookiebun says:

      @Unfortunately having briefly overtaken Chelsea in terms of quality, they have once again spent their way back back above us.
      My sentiments entirely. WE have no chance of winning the Premier League when it’s being bought by others. Anyway I would prefer to support a team that there is still maintains a modicum of honesty.

    • PortugueseHotspur says:

      It’s difficult to compete with the individual quality of the Chelski players (f*** money buys victories).
      If we think that with players like Hud, Gallas or Demp, we dominate the game early in the second half … Great job AVB, no doubt. As for Kyle, he’s a young player with great potential. He needs our support!!!!!
      COYS

  • Hartley says:

    At least Walker bothered to turn up yesterday, unlike some….

    • intesivlee says:

      thats a joke right ?

      • Hartley says:

        In fact had it not been for Cech’s outstanding save at the end we would all be raving about Walker…….fickle

        • Jimmy Sidewinder says:

          hes shit…his jog is to defend..arte u blind.

        • philmccrackin says:

          :daumen: :daumen: :daumen: Just don’t know how he is perceived as a bad player,there is a cry for young players,he is 22 and learning.Show me a player who is perfect?Love to see him at the club. :daumen:

    • LLL says:

      they all turned up. They all tried, I don’t think you can accuse any of them of not trying yesterday. We were up against a much better team. Sadly. But you are right, Walker wasn’t one of the worst performers on the day – embarrassing balls-up aside – even if I think he should have been benched a while ago now. He didn’t have a good time with Mata, but then who would have done?

      • Thepin says:

        They didn’t all turn up – I suggest Hartley’s sarcasm was in reference to Dad of the year, Mr Gareth Bale.

        I hope Bale’s child grows up to be a spurs nut, and on his or hers 21st birthday, throws the cake in Dad’s face screaming: “I can’t believe you. You could’ve been the difference. You threw away three valuable points against the blue racists 21 years ago, and then we went on the slide to relegation, followed by 21 long years in the doldrums of the lower leagues. I HATE YOU!! YOU ARE NOT MY FATHER!”

        …actually they will probably end up a fashion designer or internationally ranked tennis playboy, and not give a flying f**k about Spurs.

  • TommyHarmer says:

    We deserved to lose, but not by two …… we were hampered by our omitted players and by a number of defensive errors under pressure that need to be dealt with. Gallas had a stinker and will, over time, ease into the role of back-up central defender. Walker had a double stinker and perhaps needs two games out and a long chat with Stefan ……. Sigurrson ditto, and can’t buy a well-struck shot at present. We have to be realistic and understand that we can’t go out in one transfer window and buy Hazard, Oscar, Marin, etc like the rich boys can. But we are doing OK, and shouldn’t beat ourselves up. Instead we should balance losing to the League leaders against slapping United and, as AVB says, move on to Southampton.And put together the run that will make a win at the Bridge more likely …. COYS!!

    • Boy Charioteer says:

      That’s right. 4-2 looks terrible but 3-2 down pressing for an equalizer in injury time….

    • BrizzleSpur says:

      Another rational response to yesterdays game. I like it. More like this please.

    • Cuddlestone says:

      Yup. And I really agree with the shooting. We had so many attempts in the right areas but need players like Sigurdsson, Dempsey (Bale, Dembele) to find their range. If you compare it to a couple of Chelsea’s finishes, I can’t help but feel that on current form we would have squandered Cahill and Mata’s chances.

  • Snarklife says:

    Nailed it, HH. A Twitter account isn’t canned laughter. You can’t use it to glue ecstatic feedback to your every action. And I’m beginning to tire of footballers who get so, so much but turn on us for the crime of not giving them our unconditional love to boot. If you say interesting things on Twitter, you’ll get interesting stuff back. If you’re trawling for sycophancy, you’re going to net the odd rusty shopping trolley or, worse, the occasional ferocious shark.

    Now, as for Cole’s utterly illiterate rantings, is he three years old? And did he REALLY use £ symbols instead of hashtags? You really couldn’t make that up…

    • Harry Hotspur says:

      Walker apparently had 250,000 followers.

      Presumably the usual course of events was people happily and silently reading his little updates.

      ‘Hey Kyle, any chance of a RT for my dead mum?’ ‘Hey Kyle, I think you should wear tighter trousers!”Hey Kyle, do you grow your own hair?’

      If he always thought it was going to be like that then he’s even dafter off the pitch than he is on it.

Leave a Reply to intesivlee Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *