Live-Tweeting Of Soccer Match Interrupted When Social Media Manager Subbed Into Game

We’ve seen before just how versatile lower league soccer players have to be in order to keep their clubs functioning and their fans informed. Just this weekend, we saw another example when a Baldock Town player continued in the proud tradition of Sleaford Town’s Harrison Allen by dutifully tweeting updates about his club’s big F.A. Cup match, only shirking his social media duties once the coach put him into the game.

The man in question was the 29-year-old Liam Kenna, a defender for Baldock Town. The club competes in England’s 10th tier league. Since Kenna wasn’t starting, the club’s liaison officer handed him a phone logged into the team’s twitter account and instructed him to keep up with the action. With his nice view of the action from the bench, Kenna began tweeting away:

However, after this update from late in the match—

—the account stopped posting its regular midgame updates and didn’t tweet again until after the match was over. It wasn’t until the next day when Kenna informed Baldock Town’s followers of what the issue was:

Though anyone who followed Kenna himself could’ve figured out the deal:

Here’s the team’s liaison officer describing the situation to local Stevenage paper the :

“We try to [run the team’s Twitter account] between us – I can’t do everything, so on Sunday I gave him the phone and he took over.

“Then the game went a bit mad and he had to go on as sub, and we didn’t think about Twitter because we were concentrating on winning the game.

“Afterwards Liam put up a tweet explaining, and everyone just forgot about it because we’d won and got through to the next round.

“Liam’s a very, very funny bloke – he’s hilarious. Now we’re seeing how many people are retweeting this. It’s mad, just crazy!”

Kenna was so engrossed in his tweeting duties that he almost took the pitch with the phone still in his hand until the line ref reminded him to put it down. Here’s Kenna on the matter:

“I didn’t realise the tweet had gone viral until [liaison officer] Lynn messaged me saying her Twitter was going mad. Then I woke up this morning with 6,000 notifications.

“The worst part was when I found out I’d made a spelling mistake. Then newspapers and radio stations were ringing me all this morning.”

This was a big win for Baldock Town, as it sent them into the next round of the F.A. Cup. It’s not clear whether we’ll see or hear from Kenna again, either through the club’s tweets or with another appearance on the field. It is, however, pretty clear which of the two options Kenna himself would prefer:

[ Comet]