| About | Contact |
10 May 2018

Why do we devote so much time to sharing our love of football for free?

by Dan Mobbs

Inspiration and the motivation to follow through on an idea can come in many forms. Isaac Newton, for example, wouldn’t do anything until an apple had fallen on his head, while author Mark Haddon decided he wanted “to take a life that seemed horribly constrained, to write about it in the kind of book that the hero would read — a murder mystery” when writing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

It needn’t be this complicated though, as for others it’s simply a video of Jamie Pollock doing his worst on the final day of an infamous City season, a picture of Thierry Henry cuddling a cat, or Ally McCoist in a dodgy Hummel tracksuit.

Three geniuses who have discovered this treasure trove of football gold are ftbllrswanimals, Crap90sFootball and TheSkyStrikers, who in recent years have generously shared a gold mine of images and videos that can make even the toughest football fan feel warm on a cold day. Sharing both their free time and incredible content for the benefit of football fans everywhere, they each reveal below why they continue to selflessly share their niche interest for the benefit of complete strangers, without the benefit of financial reward.

@ftbllrswanimals | 2,862 tweets | 13.3k followers

Favourite team? Everton, unfortunately
Favourite player? Thierry Henry, the handsome cat-cuddling man
Favourite goal? David Beckham vs Greece, October 2001
Favourite game? Brazil 1-7 Germany. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from it
Years Tweeting? Nearly four
Allardyce or Bassett? Mike Bassett, as long as he’s playing four-four-fucking-two
Aspiration? World domination or Ruel Fox with a fox

Is there an account that influenced your decision to set up ftbllrswanimals?
In the early days I looked at people like waynefarry (who runs the continually great TBNSport) and JonnyGabriel. They were being funny whilst talking about football and that’s all I wanted ftbllrswanimals to be. People can be guilty of treating footballers too seriously at times, this was my own inconsequential way of showing them in a different light.

What was the main aim of the account?
There was never any specific aim, other than to maybe to hopefully make a couple of people laugh or smile (myself included). There’s just something inherently pleasant about seeing Stuart Pearce feeding milk to a baby kangaroo. The original intention was to dump them all on Twitter as a catalogue and to return whenever I found new ones, but I was continuingly unearthing more photos and people from all over the world were responding positively to it. I always assumed the ceiling was about 500 followers, but it would seem I underestimated the hunger for Lukas Podolski with sea lions.

Is it a challenge maintain the output of ftbllrswanimals alongside day-to-day life?
Sometimes, but that’s why I queue them up. I’ll take advantage of downtime at work to do the admin for it. I do check it quite frequently throughout the day, but it’d be a struggle to keep it going if I essentially had to be active with it for most of the hours I’m awake. No amount of Duncan Ferguson’s pigeons could save me.


As the account has grown do you feel a temptation to share content that you think the audience might like, instead of what made it popular in the first place?
No, not really. I’ve found my niche and I’m sticking to it. I did briefly consider a podcast where I interview various footballers about their pets or someone like Aaron Ramsey about his work with the WWF. If you’re reading this Aaron, please do get in touch.

What has been the greatest benefit from running ftbllrswanimals?
It helped me make an appearance on Pointless. If I hadn’t been able to put that on my application form and intrigue the people at the audition then I doubt I’d ever have got through to the show (crashed out in the head-to-head both times). I’ve never had any delusions of grandeur or intentions to monetise it. It’s there to entertain a small amount of people with Jermaine Pennant playing his dog at Scrabble.

Have you had to deal with much negativity towards the account?
A man from Chile messaged me a couple of years ago to tell me I’d ripped the soul out of a footballer by posting a picture of him with a fish. That was weird.

How, if at all, has ftbllrswanimals changed your life?
It’s made conversations in workplaces awkward when it has somehow come up and I’ve had to explain to people with completely bemused looks on their faces why I have a picture of a topless Thierry Henry cuddling a cat on my phone.

@Crap90sFootball | 2,764 tweets | 43.3k followers

Favourite team? Hull City AFC
Favourite player? Neil Mann (a Hull City winger from the 90s who retired prematurely with injury)
Favourite goal? Geovanni scoring Hull City’s first ever top flight goal versus Fulham, 2008/09
Favourite game Arsenal 1 - 2 Hull City 2008/09. Bloody mental
Best World Cup? 1998. Easy peasy
Years Tweeting? Just over two
Gary or Phil Neville? Gary Neville

What was the inspiration for setting up Crap90sFootball?
It was a three minute section of highlights from Yorkshire Television’s Calendar that was recorded by my mate Jim back in 1991. To provide some context, I’d accumulated and lazily hoarded several videos of recorded highlights over the last decade for a Hull City YouTube channel that I run and was giving things a final watch before throwing them out. Anyway, the video contained three abject own goals, one of which was scored by Wolves’ Paul Stancliffe at a crumbling Molineux, and it made me laugh out loud. And, as I scrutinised other tapes, I discovered there were stacks of examples of ropey defending, bad finishing and generally very funny pieces of play that warranted their own vehicle, and Twitter seemed a good way of sharing them with my mates.

Did you expect it to be so positively received?
I had no thoughts of attracting such a large following for the account when I set it up. It was purely for me and my circle of friends as a bit of fun. A couple of them had suggested it might have mileage for a bigger audience so I included club hashtags and followed club fan accounts and journalists but didn’t really push it in terms wanting to gain a following, that just happened organically and without any real effort beyond getting the footage clipped and out there. Such is the nature of Twitter, if something catches the imagination then it goes viral pretty quickly.

Are there moments when you lack the motivation to keep the account running?
It’s still a hobby and one that I enjoy, but I’ve been close to it feeling a bit all-consuming a couple of times and burning out due to the rather longwinded process of collecting the clips, at which point I step away from the account and anything associated with it for a week or two. I’m not sure why that’s happened really, I suppose sometimes I’ve put pressure on myself to get things out and felt I’m letting people down but as I said, it’s a hobby and if I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t enjoy it on the whole.


What has been the biggest positive from running Crap90sFootball?
Finding there are thousands of people on the same wave length as me and my friends? Haha! No, this’ll sound a bit twee but it’s genuinely lovely knowing that something you’re doing brightens someone’s day. Social media can be a nasty, bile filled place a lot of the time but doing something that hopefully people get is light hearted and a bit of fun is fulfilling and it’s enriching finding people on there that appreciate it.

What’s one negative to have come from running Crap90sFootball?
The account being the catalyst to increasing my VHS tape collection when I was hoping to get rid of them. Seriously! I’m going to have to build an extension at this rate.

So, what’s next?
I’ve always thought the life of the account would be tied to the availability of new footage, although I’ve still got so many of my own cassettes to comb through, I feel that I’ll be alright on that front for a wee while yet! I’m forever grateful and appreciative of people offering their own clips which have been a treat. One thing I’d love to get hold of is more footage from the wider football world, not just England, I’m sure there must be some things out there.

How, if at all, has Crap90sFootball changed your life?
It’s made me laugh. A lot. Long may it continue!

@TheSkyStrikers | 30.7k tweets | 3,037 followers

Favourite team? St Mirren, but I had a soft spot for Parma in their day. They were the height of exotic
Favourite players? Alessandro Melli, Paul Breitner and the glorious tanned enigma that was Tomas Stickroth
Favourite live game? St Mirren 4 Celtic 0 in 2010
Favourite ground? Stair Park, just pipping Old Trafford
Years Tweeting? A tick over four
Allardyce or Bassett? Sam, because I have a lovely picture of him getting a free Lada somewhere
Number of programmes scanned? It’s more than 2,000

What was the inspiration behind TheSkyStrikers?
It started off as a bit of an accident - I had a Motherwell programme lying on the floor which had a particularly terrifying shot of Willie Pettigrew in the tunnel with a mascot. I scanned it in and some people liked it, so given I had a large bucket of programmes sitting in a plastic bucket doing nothing, I had a look for other interesting photos. The whole inspiration for the account since then has been to have these photos scanned in for people to share and enjoy. As for the name, The Sky Strikers were Sky’s forgotten cheerleading troupe from the first season of the Premier League, so it seemed like a good name for an account, and one that fitted the theme.

Did you have aspirations for the account when setting it up?
There genuinely was no aim at the start other than “here’s Ally McCoist in a dodgy Hummel tracksuit, enjoy the photo!” It’s always been the same goal. Share and enjoy these photos, it’s better to do that than have them lost or sitting in a bucket forever. There’s never been a conscious attempt to get followers or anything - I’m humbled and amazed by anyone who shares anything or passes on their best. It’s been pretty wonderful.

What Twitter accounts have influenced TheSkyStrikers?
Two in particular – RetroPunishment at the time had two criminally under viewed YouTube compilation videos compiled from club VHS tapes, so in terms of the humour and nostalgia of old football, that was an inspiration in terms of the types of photos I was looking for. And obviously ScotsFootyCards. I think that was my inspiration to buy many, many copies of Goal Magazine, among other things!


Was there a particular moment when you realised that this was going to grow beyond first expectations?
There have been a couple of little signposts - being on BBC Radio Norwich to discuss Leslie Ash’s role in a Norwich City friendly at one in the morning was pretty strange. I also posted a photo of a “Face In The Crowd” from a Brechin City programme which was an old boy sitting in the crowd on his own (he could claim a socket set “valued at nearly 30 pounds” as a prize) which was really popular, and that was a strange delight watching it be retweeted over and over. Little things like that are still a delight.

What’s the strangest thing someone has said to you on Twitter?
“St Mirren were lucky to win the 87 Cup Final” - sheer madness!

If you had to choose, what would be your favourite programme?
It’s a tie between the glorious multi-coloured spectacular that is Coventry 71/72 (no programme column is greater than the helpful hints for women column “Birds Eye View”) and Bristol City 79/80 where so much goes on every week, from Kevin Mabbutt’s hot air balloon, through to Donnie Gillies in a kilt.

How, if at all, has TheSkyStrikers changed your life?
It’s made me fall back in love with football. That’s been the biggest thing by far.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons / Library of Congress

Tags: Championship, Duncan Ferguson, Everton, Football, Hull City, League Two, Premier League, Thierry Henry, Wolves

Share this article

Leave a comment

 
 
Rene Higuita wears full kit doing a big shop BBC Review of World Cup Italia '90
Nicholas Cage Japanese Sankyo advert 808 State - Pacific (Top of the Pops 1989)