Twitter withdrawals

We didn't know how good we had it

We’re in the depths of January, my alarm has been sounding at stupid o’clock to catch the Australian Open early doors, and the pre-dawn watching experience feels a little lonelier than it did in years gone by.

Does anyone else miss watching their sport with a side of Twitter?

No, I don’t mean X. I mean Twitter. That blue app with the little bird icon that at one time dominated my procrastination hours (and that of millions of others).

I know, I know, at its worst it could be hellish, full of quick-to-anger trolls who launched huge pile-ons. I had nasty DMs and nasty retweets too. A post going viral could be quite fun, though it also opened me up to some wrong ‘uns in the comments, my private messages or even a couple of times in my email inbox. As a woman working in sport, trust me, I realise it wasn’t the nicest place to exist for many.

But, at it’s best, it was social media at its most pure and perfect.

If you carefully selected sporting and newsy pages and people to follow, Twitter was full of brilliant reporting, quick-witted commentators, speedy meme creators, and laugh-out-loud funny takes on the best live sport of the day. You could ‘meet’ like-minded people, use it as an invaluable resource to track or jump on trending stories, reach out to new sources and also learn a thing or two from some of the best journalists in the business. I’d actively pop on the app to see what some of the most reliable figures in thought of this news story, that goal or result, and (tentatively at first) offered my own takes too. Twitter helped plenty of emerging journalists who grew their own followings on the app too, opening the door for careers in more established media that they might not have had access to otherwise. It offered opportunities.

I remember clinging onto the chatter on Twitter when, as an intern, I live-blogged my first ever boxing fight through the night at the office. It was December 2018, Fury v Wilder was taking place in Los Angeles, and I was in London, terrified of messing up while bashing out round-by-round analysis to a huge audience. That split decision was a curveball that came through at 05:45am my time, and boxing Twitter was awash with reaction that helped me make sense of it all. I would have been screwed without it.

Twitter had many faults obviously, one being that it would often function as an echo chamber. You’d find journalists tweeting and promoting their work to other journalists who mostly agreed with them, simply seeking validation or an ego boost. I was probably guilty of a bit of that too. I also learned quickly, mostly by actually reporting at sporting events, that some of the most skilled journalists with the most valuable contacts books had teeny tiny Twitter followings, and garnered the respect of their peers without the apps. (Radical, I know).

But as a sports fan, as well as a journalist, the collective watching experience Twitter opened the door for could be magic. I miss the memes, the breaking news alerts, reporters beating each other to an exclusive story by minutes, millions of people reacting to one specific shot from a match at the same time, being outraged by an awful take, and the way the best commentators on Tennis Twitter could conjure up a summary for an entire five-hour marathon match in 140 characters. I had friends who I exclusively communicated with by exchanging funny tweets we’d seen that day over Whatsapp. Forgive me the nostalgia, but this Australian Open has offered me a reminder to me now of how much fun that time on the internet was.

I know it’s still there, sort of. The app still exists (though it’s no longer on my phone). Many still have dedicated followers, and use it just as they did before. Millions still scroll through it (but far fewer than before). I still do occasionally, on my desktop. But instead of reading interesting on-the-ground reporting from talented, hard-working colleagues or seeing another wonderfully frosty exchange at the net between Jelena Ostapenko and whoever her opponent was (clipped up into GIF form within minutes by a committed Tennis Twitter page), the algorithm feeds me a stream of garbage.

I had a scroll during Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz’s epic match yesterday morning, and almost nothing popped up relating to it, even though I almost exclusively follow sports pages. There were no Iga’s Bakery content that I could find either, even as Swiatek has demolished her opponents this fortnight. This morning, while Jannik Sinner brutally dispatched with Alex de Minaur, my homepage served me a grainy video of a man swinging from a palm tree after taking a chainsaw to the top, thanks to an account called DudesPostingTheirWs. Then there was a sexist video about why women should stop wearing short skirts, a recurring stream of people defending Elon Musk’s Nazi salute, a lot of fake news, and then — finally — a rare tennis tweet. Thanasi Kokkinakis, in apparent awe of Sinner: “How good is this dude… jesus.” A small morsel of what I used to get on my feed, we’re surviving on scraps. I sighed and closed the page.

If I want to find the sporting takes I actually value, I need to seek them out now — and where’s the fun in that? It’s probably for the best. My screen time is down (sort of), I can still read the opinions of the best writers on traditional news sites, and Substack is the place where I seek out new sports writers with fresh opinions now.

Avoiding Twitter also means a small act of rejecting its ownership, I guess. Andy Murray summed up my feelings earlier this month: “The top 17 posts on my Twitter feed are from Elon Musk [laughing face emoji] interesting algorithm he’s created.” We’ve got bigger fish to fry and more pressing worries ahead with Musk I’m sure, but I just wanted to state the obvious: his X takeover ruined the joy of sports Twitter.

And another thing

Former England cricketer Alex Hartley made headlines this week after she revealed that some of her old teammates had snubbed her when she tried to interview them pitch side at the Ashes.

For anyone not following the series Down Under, England are having a dire time of it. They suffered four defeats to Australia in the space of nine days, and now have no chance of reclaiming the Ashes, even with a Test match still to play.

There is no huge shock when any team lose to Australia, even England, who are ranked second in the world. Australia are just a cut above the rest, they prove it time and again. But the manner of the defeats has been notable, and some of the England team appear to have developed thin skins off the field to match.

Hartley criticised her former teammates for lack of fitness after their T20 World Cup group stage exit last autumn, and some of them are still holding a grudge. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, but Hartley hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s called it how she saw it, which is more than many other pundits — who keep it beige, too afraid of ruffling feathers or offending friends — do.

I’ve always respected Hartley’s approach. A few years ago, she had a Twitter spat (remember those?!) with England’s Rory Burns, and then doubled down in an interview with me for the Telegraph, saying England's male cricketers "need a head wobble" if they think they do enough to support the women's team. She has opinions, which is an essential component to being a decent pundit (and makes for a fun interview too!).

This latest is a classic case of women’s sport graduating to a fully professional stage, but some of the athletes involved failing to accept that the benefits of professionalism come with added pressures and criticism — even from people you might consider your mates.

"The reason I said that they were not as fit as Australia is because I want them to compete with Australia, I want them to be better than Australia, and I want them to win Ashes and World Cups,” Hartley told BBC’s TMS this week. “I'm giving my opinion, and I've been given the cold shoulder from the England team ever since.”

The irony is that England bowler Sophie Ecclestone “refusing” to be interviewed by Hartley has now made the issue of the team’s fitness a back-page story again. If she had simply answered a a couple of post-match questions, the criticism would have been far quieter. But I guess I would say that, as I’m a journalist.

Recommendations

An anti-recommendation for you: this week I finally watched Challengers in its entirety. (I know, I’m a year late, but the truth is I fell asleep the first time I tried and never picked it up again.) After a rewatch, I can confirm that this film was wildly overhyped and I am not a fan. Why did everyone tell me I had to watch it?!

We got the first million-dollar transfer in women’s football this week. A huge moment. Meg Linehan of the Athletic got the scoop on Naomi Girma’s move from the NWSL’s San Diego Wave to Chelsea here.

Thanks for reading this week!

Molly x