Lawrie McKinna was in trouble again this week - for not being Ashton Kutcher. Apparently if you're a youthful and brainless celebrity it's totally entertaining to share your daily inanities, but for the more mature football manager it's a case of "don't play with your Blackberry."
Or as the late Frankie Howerd might have put it : "Twitter Ye Not."
Even the Great Bozza himself had a spray at Lawrie for taking 20 seconds out in half-time to send a tweet, despite the fact that it was actually Fox Sports who requested he do so. Hey Mark.....apology accepted anytime !
I expect if Vitezs (we all call him that, don't you ?) or Ernie had started doing it, there would have been a huge buzz of the "groundbreaker, trendsetter" variety. But this is good old Lawrie : anything he does has gotta have a negative side.
Well, biased or not, I think it's a top idea. And if any other A-League coaches want to follow Lawrie's lead then I'd be equally interested in following them. Who can honestly say that they wouldn't love to take a peek at the daily ups and downs of life as a football manager ? It's an exciting schedule full of haircuts, eye-tests (insert name of team sponsor) and minor training injuries ("Travis smashed his pretty little head into new boy. Needs to see dentist urgently but could see funny side.")
So what's wrong with using any means possible to connect with the fans ? The Mariners have been both genuine and successful in their efforts so far and perhaps other clubs might also find the publicity useful. Come on Miron, you know you want to (although restricting yourself to 100 characters could prove problematic.)
Sadly, Lawrie's tweets tell a tale of woe this week, a tale that's all too familiar for Mariners fans. In superstitious moments I sometimes believe there's some kind of hex hovering around Bluetongue. Just when we think the prize is within our grasp, things go horribly wrong. Could it be the legendary "Curse of North Sydney Oval" following us up the F3 ? (Don't go there...)
The evidence is compelling. Consider our W-League team : had an amazing season, scooped the pools at awards night and got beaten in the last two matches. Weird, disturbing. I was totally gutted for them, inspiring as they were.
Now the Mariners are showing worrying signs of undoing all the great work they've done with two baffling losses in a row. Last week was the first home match in two years that I missed and I felt somehow responsible, as all football tragics will understand. Nothing could be worse than to stand watching your favourite band on a Saturday night while getting increasingly despairing text messages about the fate of your beloved team. Few things are more depressing on a Sunday morning than sitting through a video of a match when you know the unpleasant outcome.
Was it bad luck or bad timing that brought us down against Melbourne ? If only one of our near misses had gone in at 0-0...who can say ? Or maybe it was all my fault for choosing music over football, for once.
Hex or not frankly, I'm fed up with seeing my team cast in the bridesmaid role. Do we really believe that we're "not good enough" to go all the way ? Are we just going to accept that we'll be shoved out of the "New and Confusing Finals Series" by (gasp!) Newcastle ? At the risk of sounding weird, I sometimes have nightmares about it and seeing the look on poor Boogs face last weekend brought all the horror of the Grand Final back in painful detail.
We all know that commentators love to downgrade us out of sheer snobbery. They announce "I don't think the Mariners will do well this season", like a head waiter saying "you can't come in here without a tie". The subtext is they don't want us to do well, because we don't come from a major city (and let's face it we must therefore be as bogan and unsophisticated as a set of Ed Hardy Car Seat Covers.)
Sometimes I wonder if all this stereotyping and lack of due credit affects the team's self-belief. As fans, we need to be there just to remind them how good they can be.
So bring on Brissy and Sydney, for we fear not the bright lights of those Big City teams. Defying the hex, our NYL Team is on an unstoppable course to win the Premiership and the impressive Panny Nikas is heading our way. Maybe he can help us burn those bridesmaids' dresses forever.
My favourite band is The Church. They're the musical equivalent of Ryan Giggs : classy, hairy and aged to perfection.
