The Secret Footballer / Message boards - Food for thought

I'm sure other people will have read the book by the secret footballer, but, if you are not aware of who he is or what he does, he is a pro-footballer who has played at the top levels and who has written an anonymous column in The Guardian which is a bit of a warts-and-all insight into the industry.

Anyway...One interesting paragraph in his book reads 'On many occasions, I have seen players affected by what somebody has said about them on a message board or in a newspaper. Even if there are 99 positive comments, they will put all their efforts into searching for the negative remark and, subsequently, put all their energy into worrying about it'.

Hardly breaking news to most I'm sure. But it just makes you wonder whether calling someone a useless cnut on here can be just as harmful as saying in to their face?

I'm pretty sure there are lots of people who will do one but not the other. And perhaps that is because they see the consequences as being far apart?

could have 30,000 people in a football stadium calling you a c**t! footballers need to be more thick skinned.

Yeh, that's a fair comment, but more likely to be opposing fans I would have thought

not at this club

true true hehe

They should not read fans forums/messageboards then in that case.

I agree that they should be told not to, but hard to police. Also would ban twitter accounts too.