Footballers – What a bunch of tweets

Call it what you like - #Twatgate #Colegate #Tweetgate; Ashley Cole’s tweet last Friday provided numerous football fans with an afternoon giggle, myself included. As I sat in the offices at FourFourTwo casually browsing the old Twitter machine, the Chelsea left-backs’ comment on the social networking site saw my eyes light up like a firework on the 5^th of November.

20,000 RT’s later and said tweet is removed coupled with an apology through his solicitor. However, the damage had already been done, with Sky Sports News running the comment from Cole as a breaking news story around 20 minutes after it was initially posted.

A quick apology to FA Chairman David Bernstein and a new code of conduct later and all is well again...or so it seems. Ryan Bertrand, on a quick news week as a result of the international break, takes it upon himself to deliver, according to one broadsheet newspaper, an ‘expletive ridden tweet’, via the hashtag “#yourfuckingnuts [sic]”.

Oh Ryan...what had you done?! On a slow news week due to the international break, where on Edgar Davids joining Barnet or Jen Chang issuing a witch hunt against a fictional Twitter avi could disrupt the sheer boredom that associates itself with the two week period; you go and tweet something silly like that?

But, in all honest; who really cares? The only crime he is guilty of is his grammatical failings – was his rant directed at my genitalia? If so, how did they give you a sore throat? If this tweet had come out at any time during the season, fans would’ve had a giggle and passed it off as nothing news.

Fortunately, the FA saw the light and instead of charging young Bertrand for his tweet, they took the ‘move along, nothing to see here’ approach that a bobby on the beat would’ve taken. And besides, Marvin Sordell all but took the attention away from the Chelsea full-back with his #decodingbantertips quip, insinuating that any tweet involving ‘LOL’ or ‘HAHA’ is, to put it bluntly, banter. Maybe Ashley and Ryan should’ve taken the sound advice of the Bolton Wanderers star. 

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