Now, I have already posted my bi-weekly piece for the 18 Yards blog. But after some rather comical hurling of insults from the official Moroka Swallows twitter account, I could not help but share this rather weird experience.
Some of you might already have noticed the irony of "the birds" tweeting/ twarring, I can compare it to "Love and Peace" supporters being violent on Saturday night.
Let’s begin with what
actually sparked this mini war-of-words between me (@Tom_18Yards) and @MorokaSwallows (let’s refer to the guy on the
keyboard as “Mr Invisible”). Mr
Invisible decided to wage war over what was, in my opinion, an innocent
comment. I am still being bombarded with verbal missiles as I type! It is rough
on these twitter streets! It is actually
hilarious when one looks at the tweet that brought on this whole guerilla
warfare (or Bird warfare in this case). I am guilty of mentioning my views on
twitter (I thought that’s what normal people do? Is it just me?)
This opinion is based on my personal experience as a PSL fan. I tweeted that [it is] “rare to find Swallows supporters below the age of 40.” That little comment seemed to send alarm bells of Israel-Palestine proportions in the Bird’s nest and the mighty Mr Invisible fired the first missile and replied to my tweet by saying “jealousy stinks”. BOOM! Whoa! I still don’t understand how that comment came about.
Normally, I would ignore invitations to these “twars” but as a football blogger I can’t exactly be perceived as a “jealous” idiot, for obvious reasons. So, I pulled out the spirit of Umkhonto weSizwe (don't laugh), I gathered weapons and promptly fired back a missile of my own. The missiles kept going back and forth. Between Meneer Invisible and I, I doubt my comment was more damaging to the Swallows brand than his sensitivity to a neutral PSL fan’s opinion. The subsequent hard-headedness that was to follow, when he failed to realize that I never actually said that Swallows had no fans under the age of 40 left me utterly bemused.
As I type, I have just been told, “your tweets are damaging to the #Swallows brand, you referenced our account. It’s our job to protect it #FollowtheBirds”.
Well, such a lack of understanding and such silly “twars” are not helping improve the image of the Swallows brand to other fans now are they, Mr Invisible? I was also reprimanded by Mr Invisible and told that “you’re wrong to claim there’s no U40 #swallows fans. Plus what’s so wrong with a kid supporting their parent’s team?”
Mr Invisible touches on two issues. Firstly, he accuses me of claiming there are no “under 40” Swallows fan. My short tweet contained the following words: “rare to find Swallows supporters below the age of 40.” One fan, @Mpela3, clearly did not take issue with my tweet and even replied and tweeted “maybe I’m the rare type supporter”. Now, was that tweet by @Mpela3 also “damaging to the Swallows brand” or is it alright in Mr Invisible’s mind once it is clear which side of the fence one is standing on. Secondly, I briefly touched on the issue of why we South Africans support the teams we do two weeks ago. One of my tweets clearly stated that “U cnt claim jealousy wen im stating wat Ive xperienced as a PSL fan.I hv neva met a SFC fan below de age of 40” to which I received an arrogant Bobby Motaung-esque reply from Mr Invisible as he tweeted the following, “Hahahaha you’re joking right?” I got the feeling that Mr Invisible was under the idea that I was insulting the club instead of just expressing my views, and the more I tried talking sense the more missiles Mr Invisible kept firing. It seemed to be a useless exercise trying to use logic to show that I am not the enemy, but then again I tend to get into a lot of these useless arguments with soccer fans almost everywhere I go. "When logic fails, anger prevails", is some people's philosophy.
Since “serving divorce papers” to Family Business FC, Swallows was always one of the teams that I was considering supporting, for simple reasons. Firstly, they are the nearest team from where I live. Secondly, I like their brand of football - as I stated in my previous blog. Lastly, the club does not seem to have that many fans, and I'd honestly prefer supporting the "smaller" teams in the PSL. Less glory-hunters and plastic fans and I'd assume they appreciate their fans more than the bigger teams. But if this is how Swallows and the rest of the other clubs want to communicate with ordinary fans with such arrogane and preferring to rather argue over petty issues, they should not wonder why the stadiums are empty.
Name-calling is really not necessary, least of all from a club with such poor match attendance figures. I have to be blunt about that. However, I will put this immature twar behind me and continue enjoying the football that the Beautiful Birds dish out weekly as they compete with the big guns in an exciting PSL title race.
I must give a special shout-out to the three “under 40” fans of Moroka Swallows which I now know exist thanks to this twitter war -who said in war there are no victors, huh? @Mpela3, @iamMelu_C and @ohone1, I look forward to maybe meeting you guys in the stands so that I too can say I have met a Swallows fan under the age of 40. I can then be safe from twitter warfare from the Mr Invisible (and hopefully from the Kaizer Chefs fans who were hurling all sorts of objects this past weekend).
To Mr Invisible (the guy behind the keyboard responsible for @MorokaSwallows’ tweets) I will repeat what I tweeted (in proper English this time): “You can’t claim jealousy when I’m stating what I’ve experienced as a PSL fan. I have never met a Swallows fan below the age of 40.” You, Mr Invisible, cannot say “that’s unfound” and “a myth”. Your database has nothing to do with my personal experience. While we are on that topic, feel free to publish the official figures as far as club membership is concerned – here’s a better idea, tweet the figures, and I will happily retweet.
This piece was a bit informal and not my best work but I had to share this experience. I know twars are usually more vicious with more insults but since I don’t usually engage in them, this was a weird experience, especially as it was not with an actual person but with an official club account.
I guess now would be a good time to say the magic words: “Don’t follow me, follow the Birds.” If you prefer not to follow the Birds, well, you can just follow me on twitter (no twars, asseblief!).
Follow me on twitter and let’s talk football.
'Til next time
Thomas Monyepao
This opinion is based on my personal experience as a PSL fan. I tweeted that [it is] “rare to find Swallows supporters below the age of 40.” That little comment seemed to send alarm bells of Israel-Palestine proportions in the Bird’s nest and the mighty Mr Invisible fired the first missile and replied to my tweet by saying “jealousy stinks”. BOOM! Whoa! I still don’t understand how that comment came about.
Normally, I would ignore invitations to these “twars” but as a football blogger I can’t exactly be perceived as a “jealous” idiot, for obvious reasons. So, I pulled out the spirit of Umkhonto weSizwe (don't laugh), I gathered weapons and promptly fired back a missile of my own. The missiles kept going back and forth. Between Meneer Invisible and I, I doubt my comment was more damaging to the Swallows brand than his sensitivity to a neutral PSL fan’s opinion. The subsequent hard-headedness that was to follow, when he failed to realize that I never actually said that Swallows had no fans under the age of 40 left me utterly bemused.
As I type, I have just been told, “your tweets are damaging to the #Swallows brand, you referenced our account. It’s our job to protect it #FollowtheBirds”.
Well, such a lack of understanding and such silly “twars” are not helping improve the image of the Swallows brand to other fans now are they, Mr Invisible? I was also reprimanded by Mr Invisible and told that “you’re wrong to claim there’s no U40 #swallows fans. Plus what’s so wrong with a kid supporting their parent’s team?”
Mr Invisible touches on two issues. Firstly, he accuses me of claiming there are no “under 40” Swallows fan. My short tweet contained the following words: “rare to find Swallows supporters below the age of 40.” One fan, @Mpela3, clearly did not take issue with my tweet and even replied and tweeted “maybe I’m the rare type supporter”. Now, was that tweet by @Mpela3 also “damaging to the Swallows brand” or is it alright in Mr Invisible’s mind once it is clear which side of the fence one is standing on. Secondly, I briefly touched on the issue of why we South Africans support the teams we do two weeks ago. One of my tweets clearly stated that “U cnt claim jealousy wen im stating wat Ive xperienced as a PSL fan.I hv neva met a SFC fan below de age of 40” to which I received an arrogant Bobby Motaung-esque reply from Mr Invisible as he tweeted the following, “Hahahaha you’re joking right?” I got the feeling that Mr Invisible was under the idea that I was insulting the club instead of just expressing my views, and the more I tried talking sense the more missiles Mr Invisible kept firing. It seemed to be a useless exercise trying to use logic to show that I am not the enemy, but then again I tend to get into a lot of these useless arguments with soccer fans almost everywhere I go. "When logic fails, anger prevails", is some people's philosophy.
Since “serving divorce papers” to Family Business FC, Swallows was always one of the teams that I was considering supporting, for simple reasons. Firstly, they are the nearest team from where I live. Secondly, I like their brand of football - as I stated in my previous blog. Lastly, the club does not seem to have that many fans, and I'd honestly prefer supporting the "smaller" teams in the PSL. Less glory-hunters and plastic fans and I'd assume they appreciate their fans more than the bigger teams. But if this is how Swallows and the rest of the other clubs want to communicate with ordinary fans with such arrogane and preferring to rather argue over petty issues, they should not wonder why the stadiums are empty.
Name-calling is really not necessary, least of all from a club with such poor match attendance figures. I have to be blunt about that. However, I will put this immature twar behind me and continue enjoying the football that the Beautiful Birds dish out weekly as they compete with the big guns in an exciting PSL title race.
I must give a special shout-out to the three “under 40” fans of Moroka Swallows which I now know exist thanks to this twitter war -who said in war there are no victors, huh? @Mpela3, @iamMelu_C and @ohone1, I look forward to maybe meeting you guys in the stands so that I too can say I have met a Swallows fan under the age of 40. I can then be safe from twitter warfare from the Mr Invisible (and hopefully from the Kaizer Chefs fans who were hurling all sorts of objects this past weekend).
To Mr Invisible (the guy behind the keyboard responsible for @MorokaSwallows’ tweets) I will repeat what I tweeted (in proper English this time): “You can’t claim jealousy when I’m stating what I’ve experienced as a PSL fan. I have never met a Swallows fan below the age of 40.” You, Mr Invisible, cannot say “that’s unfound” and “a myth”. Your database has nothing to do with my personal experience. While we are on that topic, feel free to publish the official figures as far as club membership is concerned – here’s a better idea, tweet the figures, and I will happily retweet.
This piece was a bit informal and not my best work but I had to share this experience. I know twars are usually more vicious with more insults but since I don’t usually engage in them, this was a weird experience, especially as it was not with an actual person but with an official club account.
I guess now would be a good time to say the magic words: “Don’t follow me, follow the Birds.” If you prefer not to follow the Birds, well, you can just follow me on twitter (no twars, asseblief!).
Follow me on twitter and let’s talk football.
'Til next time
Thomas Monyepao
