This Is A Newsletter

Social media sucks. Discoverability sucks. This is my FLEX TAPE.

One dingy, rainy morning in November last year, I was stood outside Putney Bridge tube station, trying to book an Uber to take me to Craven Cottage. I was a teensy bit hazy; the night before, I'd attended a networking event that went in a direction I never thought possible: I ended up sat next to former Borussia Dortmund manager Edin Terzić, watching England play Serbia, and quizzing him on Thomas Tuchel's tactics.

Terzić strictly drank water, and I, uhh, strictly did not.

What followed was a missed morning alarm, a dart out the door and a hurried skip across London to arrive in Fulham on time (I did, thankfully). I was on my way to an annual conference that the footballing world descends upon; 300+ directors, scouts, analysts and agents from every continent suddenly all pop up in the exact same place and they're desperate to chat.

In my haste, I almost missed him, standing outside the station: An old acquaintance that I had not seen in years. Someone who used to be in the content game but had moved into football – at first scouting for a top-level club, then later into consultancy.

I binned the Uber request and we walked from the station to the Cottage, a 20-minute meander along the Thames, through green parks and gravelled paths that crunch under foot. Had it not been pissing it down, it would have been delightful.

As we chatted, it became clear we really weren't up to date on each other's recent movements. I didn't know he'd moved into consultancy – that was six months ago; he didn't know I'd joined ESPN – that was three months ago. We talked about other mutual connections, filling in each other's blanks on what they're up to.

As conversations go it was both wonderful and sad: It's great to get caught up on what people are up to – but why did I need this conversation to do so? I didn't used to.

The problem, of course, is that since Twitter shat its pants, the footballing community has been thrown into disarray. Some have stayed, but many have departed. Some are just entirely done with social media. Some have decamped to Bluesky or Threads. And some just use LinkedIn now. What was once a bubbling community all operating in the same space is now a fractured, splintered, unrewarding landscape.

For someone like me, who writes and talks football and wants to put that content front and centre in people's minds, that's a big problem. What was once an easy task on Twitter is now borderline impossible. Even if half the population hadn't left, the site buries links so you don't see anything anyone creates anyway.

So here's my FLEX TAPE meme guy move; my attempt to put a plaster on a deep fissure: A (very simple) newsletter.

It is, primarily, some links. It's a "here's what I did this week" weekly email. Features, interviews, podcasts, videos. Plus some accompanying cutting room floor tidbits that perhaps didn't make my editor's grade, perhaps. No bells, very few whistles, just a quick In Case You Missed It update (although it's sadly more often a You Definitely Missed It these days).

Think of it like...following me on Twitter.