ent at the Forum. ... Ross will be trying to defend his All-Star slam-d

January is a difficult time for a footy fan to be on Twitter. Fake Nike NFL Jerseys . With the transfer window open, hundreds of accounts rack up their followers alleging to know of an impending transfer. Some are legitimate; most are not. What, without question, cannot be questioned, however, is the insatiable appetite that Twitterites have for information. Any kind of information. Fact or fiction, in 140 characters or less, please and thank-you. Now. This week we heard the story of 17-year-old English schoolboy Samuel Rhodes who pretended to be a football journalist, guessed correctly on a few scoops, and managed to get to over 20,000 followers. He is not the first to do this and wont be the last. The outing of Rhodes came in the same week that former Premier League star Stan Collymore took a brave stance to demand more from Twitter to stop the disgusting levels of abuse he receives, many of which simply comes down to the colour of his skin. Twitter, like the world, can be a dark and depressing place, where it is easy to lose faith in humanity. Yet, it can also be magnificent. For me, it has shown me things on this gorgeous planet of ours I wouldve never have seen, it has introduced me to some brilliant writers, whose work I would never have found, and given me a regular education on things that interest me, helping me become more knowledgeable about subjects I am passionate about. It is up to me to ensure, from Twitter, I get much more of the latter than the former, but it is getting harder and harder to find the gems amongst the rubbish. For that reason, this week I learned about the examples of Rhodes and Collymore indirectly through Twitter. I do not follow either. This is my personal choice. Rhodes, whose account has since been suspended, succeeded not necessarily because he was right more than he was wrong but because he was able, in 140 characters or less, to write what people would be interested in. He quite often didnt write the truth, yet people were interested in what he had to say, so he became popular. This month I have experimented in following Twitter accounts who told me they had inside track on transfers. The moment they started retweeting articles from the UK press telling me Juventus were selling Paul Pogba and Claudio Marchisio to Manchester United tomorrow, for example, they quickly became unfollowed. I am aware that I am not their target audience. I care very little for transfer gossip. I actually blame the brilliant magazine Match, bought by almost every teenage English boy in the 80s and 90s, for this when they once ran on their front page a picture of my favourite player, David Platt, claiming they had an exclusive that he was returning to Aston Villa. Once I opened the magazine, I found it was an April Fools Joke and my college mates laughed harder than they did at Alan Partridge. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, no chance, I am waiting for the player to be introduced at the press conference. That is just me, however. Football fans are obsessed to read their clubs being linked with players and, incredibly, most of them either do not care or do not know that most successful transfers come out-of-the-blue and the long, drawn out ones done in the media are often the ones that do not get completed. In a week of tweets around Rhodes and Collymore, thousands more rained down on timelines last Thursday when a supposed new way of ensuring a transfer was secured came to light. Wayne Rooney has started following Juan Mata on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/85RgaHSWe5 — Mr. Transfer News (@MrTransferNewss) January 23, 2014 Notice the double S? #smalldetails Now, it is very unlikely that Ed Woodward and his staff at Manchester United sent out an in-house memo to their players saying please follow our latest recruit. So, it is safe to assume that good ol Wazza followed his new mate to get to know him a bit more and allow him, once his new mate decides to follow back (note - Mata has been slightly more cautious who he follows in light of this news and continues to read tweets from Spanish & Chelsea teammates as well as others from Coldplay, The Beatles and Rafael Nadal) to then send direct messages even though he will soon have his mobile phone number. If you were a football fan on Twitter last Thursday for a couple of hours between 1pm and 3pm Eastern time it would have been nearly impossible to escape the "news" of Rooneys latest follow. Retweet after retweet after retweet. Done in less than a second with little to no thought. Yet, what is it all for? Sure, you can learn something about who people follow, I will give you that, but this? Told to us all that many times? Who really needs it? My mind went back to a more innocent time when the same thirst for information existed but wasnt available to people. RT @YorkshirePost: @BrianSpecialOneClough now follows @LeedsUnited. Deal must be done. Follow @YorkshirePost to find out when players start following @BrianSpecialOneClough. Football fans of those times certainly werent as uneducated about the game just because they werent able to get access to information quicker. They read the brilliant amount of literature made available to them by outstanding journalists whose reputations were based on their copy, not the amount of followers they had. So what are football fans learning from Twitter in 2014? It is believed that there are now over a billion twitter accounts that have been started since it was launched in March 2006. The same statistics reveal that over 100 million are active daily tweeters and, on average, over 500 million tweets per day are sent out. In an era where it is getting harder and harder to get people to read, people are tweeting more than ever. Once seen as a platform to make sure consumers can read what interests them, it has now provided those followers with a reason, almost instantly, not to bother opening it as their eyes are immediately guided elsewhere. When I tweeted about this article I am fully aware that some people didnt even have the attention span to read the entire tweet. Others, read the tweet and didnt click the link, some clicked the link and jumped ship on the article earlier on, some are still with me but have skimmed this sentence because too many people do not read properly anymore, leaving the rest of you still sticking with this. For now. Thank-You. This week I had a discussion with a young man in this industry who wanted to know more about what he should do. For some reason he wanted to talk to me yet, despite that decision, he is a smart guy with a good sports brain. He wondered if he should tweet more when he is watching sports; I told him to tweet less. During a match, Twitter opens up a door on a gigantic theatre and allows you to come in with your mates to discuss what is going on as the game plays out in front of you all. During the discussion you will often meet new friends and quite often this can be great fun but the next time someone calls you out for your opinion on a team or a player I suggest, if you care, to check how often he tweets during a match. If he tweets often it will be difficult to watch the game close enough to form strong, informed opinions. With live games around the world giving football fans more access than ever, attention spans are getting shorter and shorter as people cannot wait to jump on their mobile device to give their take on something. When a television replay is being given to the audience, to show a great example of what just happened, millions around the world are missing it because they have their head into their mobile device tweeting to their followers what they just saw. Some people love this and everyone is entitled to their own cup of tea but if you are buying a ticket to that kind of party you should know what you are signing up for. Hashtags and retweets open up your very own, personal Twitter Universe and, as the stories around Rhodes and Collymore have proven, can pull you, even amidst the tranquility of a Sunday morning, to a land of vile insults where absolute lies are talked about as facts. It is a dangerous world that continues to get your attention, very often over the people sitting in the exact same room as you. (You know you have done it; truly well done if you havent). For a fan, Twitter can give you a lot of good things but if you must ignore the game, or person you are sat with, to dive head first into Twitter, be careful what you are choosing to read and write. You owe that much to your brain and the one thing that is getting more and more precious to all of us - your time. #thanksforstickingwithme Cheap Authentic Jerseys 2020 . -- Michigan coach John Beilein is willing to give Nik Stauskas a little leeway when it comes to shot selection. Cheap Jerseys 2020 .Y. - Matt Harvey wants to make sure hes on the mound in late October — if the New York Mets get there for the first time since 2006. https://www.wholesalejerseysreview.com/ .C. -- The Bobcats announced theyve signed centre Justin Hamilton to a 10-day contract. LOS ANGELES -- Blake Griffin has become the first player in the history of the Los Angeles Clippers franchise with three consecutive games of 30 or more points. And hes made it look easy, even without Chris Pauls help. Griffin scored 19 of his 36 points in the first quarter and Jamal Crawford added 21, leading the Clippers to a 118-105 victory over the Toronto Raptors in a matchup of division leaders Friday night. "I expected greatness, but Blakes done some things we didnt know he could do," coach Doc Rivers said. "Clearly, were taking advantage of him in the open court with the ball. And hell be even better when Chris comes back." DeAndre Jordan had 18 points and 13 rebounds for the defending Pacific Division champions, who are 12-6 since Paul separated his right shoulder on Jan. 3. "When it first happened, we didnt know how long it would be at that time," Crawford said. "Me and Blake understood what it meant, and that more was expected of us. But its been a total team effort, and thats a credit to the coaching staff. They always keep us prepared. You saw how things went for Doc in the past with Boston when he lost Rondo and had K.G. in and out of the lineup. But he never made excuses, and he wasnt going to allow himself to make excuses this time no matter who was out." Griffin, who had 36 points at Denver and 43 against Miami in the Clippers previous two games, capped his dominant opening quarter on a 20-footer with 2.4 seconds on the clock to give the Clippers a 29-22 lead. Crawford, who had 37 points in the previous meeting between the teams, burned the Raptors for 14 points in the second quarter while starting again for the injured J.J. Redick. "Their bigs created some problems. And when youve got a player like Jamal Crawford, it can definitely get tough," Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan said. "Thats why you cant give them any leeway. Youve got to fight with them to the end." Jordan attempted 22 free throws and converted a career-high 10, after entering the game averaging 43.4 per cent from the foul line. "I think they started fouling him when they were down 18. And when they stopped it, they were down 17," Rivers said. "Its like when they intentionally walk people in baseball -- and thats no fun tto watch. Wholesale Jerseys Review. I would say it changed the rhythm of the game, because we had a great pace and we never got back to that. But as far as the score, it really didnt change anything." The Clippers, coming off a 116-112 loss to the NBA champion Miami Heat on Wednesday, are 4-6 against the other five first-place clubs. They havent dropped back-to-back home games in the regular season since Nov. 3-5, 2012, against Golden State and Cleveland. DeRozan had 36 points and eight assists for the Atlantic Division-leading Raptors, who concluded their 2-3 road trip with their fourth straight loss to the Clippers at Staples Center. They lead the Brooklyn Nets by three games in the standings. Terrence Ross, who tied Vince Carters single-season franchise record with 51 points in the Raptors 126-118 loss to the Clippers on Jan. 25 at Toronto, picked up two fouls in the first quarter and finished with nine points in 28 minutes on 3-for-10 shooting. Amir Johnson hit Griffin in the head with his left arm as the four-time All-Star drove the lane on an attempted slam dunk with 9:50 left in the third quarter. The call was a flagrant 1 foul after referees James Capers, Mark Lindsay and Matt Boland viewed the replay at the scorers table, and Griffin converted both free throws for a 75-56 lead. Less than 3 minutes later, Jordan blocked a short jumper by Kyle Lowry, leading to a 3-pointer by Matt Barnes that widened the gap to 82-60, the Clippers biggest lead of the game. Griffin got his fifth foul and took a seat with 5:16 left in the third, but by then the Clippers had built an 84-66 cushion. Toronto ended the quarter with a 10-1 spurt, slicing its deficit to 92-83, but they got no closer. Willie Green helped seal the victory with a pair of 3-pointers 1:24 apart. The Clippers were 9 for 24 from behind the arc, improving to 22-0 when making at least nine. NOTES: Paul was cleared on Thursday to play in Sunday nights game against Philadelphia, with the 18-32 Lakers serving as the opening act against Chicago in the Staples Center doubleheader. ... DeRozan is the first USC player to be selected to play in an All-Star Game since Gus Williams in 1983, when the Lakers hosted the event at the Forum. ... Ross will be trying to defend his All-Star slam-dunk title on Feb. 15 at New Orleans. ' ' '