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Any football fan with half a grasp of modern technology will find him or herself on the Twitter page of a Premier League club with some regularity. It’s how we get our news, and very convenient it is too.
Yet how often do we actually look at the pages themselves and really drink in the information on display there? Not often. Some of us have lives, after all.
Well fear not, dear reader, for – at the behest of literally no one – your humble correspondent has pored over the Twitter profiles of all 20 Premier League clubs to rescue you from comfortable ignorance.
This is not a quest to find the best and worst tweeters, but rather an assessment of the presentation of each account, taking into account the Twitter handle, the bio and the header photo, examining how each represents the club. (We’ve ignored the profile pictures because they’re literally all just of badges. Complaints to the usual place.)
Each of the three categories is scored out of 10, so the totals are nominally out of 30. But there’s the chance for bonuses and deductions, meaning you should probably just abandon any expectation for anything resembling coherency at the outset. Sorry in advance.
On with the show.
Bio: Good to know that the official club website brings us the latest news. I was worried for a while back there. Nice foreign-language options, though. 7
Header photo: Using the squad photo is a good idea - and a surprisingly underused one. But the heads of the players on the top row are chopped off on desktop and Francis Coquelin’s facial expression should probably come with a warning to children. 6
Bonuses and deductions: Have been known to start tweets with quotes from Arsene Wenger with “Boss:”. Two points knocked off.
Handle: One of only two clubs to stick resolutely to the lower case, which is enjoyably rebellious. But at 15 characters (including the @), it’s not very space-efficient. 5
Bio: A solid list of things to expect. Kudos for the lack of needless hashtaggery but that Oxford comma has to go. 7
Header photo: Moody and, with all three kits on display, presumably good for the commercial department. 7
Bonuses and deductions: No Vine account, no links to other accounts, no hashtags. An additional point for minimalism.
Handle: Having ‘official’ in there isn’t ideal, especially when @Burnley is just a shell of an account with 39 followers. Have a word. 3
Bio: It’s not clear why Burnley’s in-house video player needs its own Twitter profile, but we’ll let that go. What follows is an ungainly list of accounts on other platforms that could really do with just being links (see Stoke’s account for an example how it’s done). 3
Bonuses and deductions: Only joined Twitter in 2011, so relative latecomers to the format. 10% sympathy bonus.
Handle: @Chelsea was the prime real estate, but this is still good. 8
Header photo: Another squad, but properly cropped to fit mobile and desktop. Give that social media intern a pat on the back. 8
Bonuses and deductions: Chelsea have liked 10.3k tweets - the highest number in the Premier League by a country mile. Generosity or low standards? I’m erring towards the latter. One-point penalty.
Bio: Pretty much the default football club bio, plus some Instagram action for the kids. Interestingly (…), the only club to put the dots in ‘F.C.’, indicating an eye for detail if nothing else. 6
Header photo: You couldn’t have found one of him facing towards the camera? 4
Bonuses and deductions: Their location is listed as ‘South London & Proud’, which, aside from the needless capitalisation of the final word, is a nice touch. Have a point on us.
Bio: There’s full-on history lesson condensed into the character limit here, which is no mean feat. And there’s still space for a couple of hashtags, the acronym of the club’s motto and a helpful link. 8
Header photo: The Toffees have gone for the Championship-Manager-background-screen look here. Credit for refusing to follow the crowd, but it’s a bit lifeless. 2
Bonuses and deductions: First tweeted back in December 2008, making them the Premier League’s founding fathers on Twitter. That’s worth a 10% bonus.
Handle: Maximum points for any club - heck, anyone on Twitter - whose handle exactly matches their username. 10
Header photo: A new approach here, but a successful one. It’s useful to know when the next game is. 8
Bonuses and deductions: A quick scroll down the page reveals that they use that same orange filter for nearly every picture they tweet, giving the feed the feel of an Irn Bru fever dream. This is a bad thing. ‘Orange’ and ‘Irn Bru’ both have six letters, so that seems a scientifically appropriate number of points to deduct.
Handle: This is fine, but given that @LeicesterCity is just an automated stream of headlines, it feels like second best. 7
Bio: Interesting that the hashtag is in lower case while the handle is in upper case. Where’s the internal consistency, Leicester? wHEre, i ASk yOU? 4
Header photo: Yeah, fair enough. I’d dine out on that for a while longer too. 10
Bonuses and deductions: The account only follows 61 people. The Premier League champions don’t need to please mere mortals. 61 bonus points.
Handle: The scamps at the Liverpool Echo nabbed @Liverpool early doors, but this is the next best option. 7
Bio: A tiny bit boastful, perhaps, but if you’ve got it, flaunt it. No annoying administrative clutter, either. 8
Bonuses and deductions: At time of writing, Liverpool follow 390,809 people on Twitter. That’s more people than I knew had Twitter accounts. Their Tweetdeck feed must move like Usain Bolt. I don’t know if I’m appalled or impressed. No bonuses or deductions until I come to a conclusion.
Bio: Not their ‘Twitter account’ or their ‘Twitter feed’, just their Twitter, which seems grammatically odd. Then the obligatory help and synergy. 6
Header photo: All generic celebration photos are equal, but some generic celebration photos are more equal than others. This isn’t a great one. 4
Bonuses and deductions: That Snapchat link takes you to a page that says their Snapchat account can be found at ‘mcfcofficial’. But that’s the wrong username, as their own Twitter bio suggests. Five-point deduction.
Handle: Would @ManUnited have been better? That’s a rhetorical question; the answer is yes. 5
Bio: No frills, no needless information. Well done. 8
Header photo: This is the gold standard as far as header images go, with key players (and Wayne Rooney) on display and strong use of colour. Crucially, the picture appears to have been created exactly for this purpose. 10
Bonuses and deductions: That football emoji has to go. Two points off.
Handle: Unusual approach, going for the brevity of that nickname. A grower, but probably not the first thing you’d search for. 5
Bio: Middlesbrough are the only club to reference the Premier League in their bio. They’re clearly proud to be in the top flight. Cute. 8
Header photo: “We scored a goal and celebrated it!” 5
Bonuses and deductions: Nothing of note.
Handle: Same as the username (and, er, the name of the club). 10
Bio: Perhaps a bit busy. Southampton stuff, we get it. 5
Header photo: The Same Game campaign is aimed at providing greater opportunities for women and girls in the game. Good publicity for an excellent cause. 10
Bonuses and deductions: Their profile photo is of the logo on a club jersey, rather than a direct image of the badge itself. A nice idea, but why take it from such a weird angle? One point knocked off for misplaced artistic flair.
Bio: A lot going on, but if you are going to flood this section with plugs for your accounts elsewhere, this is how to do it. Much easier to click than to copy and paste. 6
Header photo: Joe Allen is cool, but it’s yet another celebration picture. 5
Bonuses and deductions: 10 extra points for uniformity of usernames across platforms.
Handle: I’ve really created a rod for my own back with the rule from earlier. Oh well. 10
Bio: Three hashtags! Steady on. A cursory search suggests that the #RedAndWhiteArmy thing is not exactly booming, either. 5
Header photo: From the ongoing photojournalism series: Woke up hungover at the Stadium of Light. Harrowing. 1
Bonuses and deductions: Honestly, just look at the header photo. Hilarious. I’m taking that point away again.
Handle: These aren’t just your everyday swans, paddling round and occasionally flying short distances. These are official swans, with government jobs and mortgages. Actually, Official Swans would be a decent band name. Where was I? Oh, a score. 4.25
Bio: Probably should have realised at the outset that these were all going to be largely the same. 6
Handle: San Antonio Spurs, you utter fiends. Another ‘official’ one. 5
Bio: OK, so you’re available in many different languages. Felicitations. But why is @SpursOfficial on that last when THAT’S WHERE WE ARE ALREADY? Think it through, people. 3
Header photo: All the kits, and what lovely kits they are. Good facial expressions, too, from Jan Vertonghen’s ‘I’m showering, get out’ look to Michel Vorm telling the story of Bambi using nothing but his eyes. 9
Bonuses and deductions: The branding across all the foreign-language accounts is identical, apart from @Spurs_ES, which appears to be an Erik Lamela fan site. Erik Lamela is great, so this is worth three extra points.
Handle: Their name. Yes. 10
Bio: Undoubtedly the most unique bio in the top flight here. “Up-to-the minute messages delivered informally.” Sorry, what? On reflection, that’s exactly what I want. And who isn’t keen for “loads of other good stuff”? Idiots, that’s who. “Keep in touch!” You know what, I will. Thanks Watford. I feel like I’ve made a new friend. 20
Bonuses and deductions: I’ve already given them 20 our of 10 in the bio category, so they probably have enough points.
Handle: They were two years too late to grab @WestBrom, but this is short and sweet enough. 7
Header photo: At least choose a celebration picture in which the players are in the centre or slightly to the right, so they’re not obscured by the profile picture on desktop. Some people. 3
Bonuses and deductions: No. I want to stop writing this now.
Handle: ‘Utd’ just doesn’t sit well with me. Meanwhile, @WestHam hasn’t even tweeted yet. 4
Bio: Slightly grammatically challenged. Three-times (-time?) FA Cup what? Or did you win both the FA Cup and 1965 European Cup Winners’ Cup three times? Don’t worry, I hate myself more than you ever could. 2
Header photo: I’m guessing this is just a rotating selection of photos of Dimitri Payet over time, which is fine by me. 7
Bonuses and deductions: The only club to include an emoji representing their nickname/badge in their bio. Quite cool. Plus five.
Leicester win and I’m going to sit in a dark room for six hours to think about why I wrote this.
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