There were two incidents yesterday that for me highlighted the powers of social media and not always in a good way and also the way that football has changed over the last few years that I am not sure I understand.
Firstly, Garry Monk's wife took to social media to criticise Swans fans for delivering a letter to her house which criticised the way that Garry is managing the team.
On her Twitter account - which has now been closed/suspended, she wrote
"Absolutely incensed a neighbour has the audacity2hand deliver a letter moaning at Garry's handling of things/everything he's doing wrong.
"If u want2talk2him go2the Swans.Don't come2my childrens home. Or better still,as u think u know better than him,y don't u become a manager."
I have to say that - in amongst the social media language that 140 characters dictates has to be used - she has a point. I have no issue with any football fan criticising a manager or team but nobody should have these kind of things delivered to their home. I wouldn't expect any of my customers to do that so I fail to see why any fan would want to do it to a manager and disturb and upset his home life which he is as entitled to enjoy as the rest of us.
I have no idea why the account was suspended/removed but I suspect that she probably took some grief then for commenting publically which is one of the big downsides for me of any form of social media and many things are said that would never be repeated verbally.
The other incident was a comment from Swans Vie Chairman Leigh Dineen who took to Twitter himself having watched the Swans beaten late on against Liverpool in the Capital One Cup. His Tweet read as follows
This Tweet was picked up by the Daily Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/swansea-city/11196985/Swansea-vice-chairman-launches-attack-on-red-card-and-warns-that-future-mistakes-could-prompt-legal-action.html) who acknowledge that Leigh says the views are his own but clearly have their view that it was comments made by our Vice Chairman and they almost relate them to the club.
They also refer to some of the retweets that were made by Leigh as well
Again this is showing the powers of social media and how the simplest of comments can lead to newspaper articles.
As with Garry Monk's comments after Stoke everything was written in the heat of the battle and it was reasonably clear to most watching that Fernandez should not have been sent off (and we hope the club win their appeal) but social media is now an easy target for people to trawl through and create more than is actually there. And that isn't always a good thing