It’s tempting, isn’t it? Just grabbing your phone to check your notifications on any football updates.

This may be specifically aimed at Hull City supporters, but it could in fact be relevant to many different fan bases across the land.

  • Its natural for fans to be excited - but people really need to calm down

As pre-season gets well underway with teams training again and various activities in the transfer window, it’s only natural for fans to start to get excited about potential comings and goings. 

Players leave; players are linked, the long wait for (the dreaded word) official announcements… and then we do it all again the next day. Transfer window season… great, isn’t it?

Actually, no. No, it’s not. 

  • For Christ’s sake, stop tweeting so much!

It’s a hideous time of year when fans get whipped up into a frenzy on social media and before you know it, they’re tagging players in tweets either begging them not to leave or (worse) telling them they’re a disgrace for something they’ve allegedly done wrong. It really, really needs to stop.

Social media has completely ruined football in so many ways. In the early days of the Internet, message boards were often awash with rumours of players leaving or joining, but they were often never verified in the same way as to get online was a chore in itself with 56k dial up and that hideous connecting tone that sounded like your computer was about to disappear into another dimension.

  • Fancy getting annoyed? Check your club’s hashtag…

These days, all you have to do is go on the #hcafc hashtag to see everything that is wrong with the overuse of social media Apps such as Twitter and Facebook. 

People hide behind pictures of their favourite player or a random jumble of numbers after the initials of their favourite club. They constantly post “wish lists” of players they think should play for their club, and have a go at local journalists for simply writing stories from the information they get from those at the top. Doing their job, in other words. 

You’ve also got the doom and gloomers - never happy with anything - or those that are so excited for the new season to start and hear anything “announced” from the club that it makes you think of a child who can’t sleep on Christmas Eve.  

  • Overuse of social media has ruined football

All of this makes me wish for a much simpler time - when players could be normal people without having to pose for pictures every two seconds as they’re trying to live their lives. A simpler time when people simply waited for the club to reveal kits, sponsorship deals and new signings when they were in a position to do so. A simpler time when you didn’t have so much misinformation so easily accessible that it literally makes your head hurt from reading all the ignorant, badly homphoned and patronising squabbling ended with a thumbs up emoji.

  • For your own sake, limit your time on social media

I’m aware of the irony of posting on social media to defame it, before anyone pops up on my Twitter feed calling me a hypocrite or a sanctimonious so-and-so. Social media can be great. Just limit your time on it, before your own mental health deteriorates to such an extent that you can’t even strike up a conversation with a like minded individual. 

For everyone’s sake, don’t tweet everything that comes into your head. Be patient, kind and courteous. Good things come to those who wait, as the old proverb goes. 

So put your bloody phone down and exist in the real world before you become a slave to technology.