Town boss Paul Jewell says released midfielder Billy Clark’s Twitter aberration has been forgotten and that the Blues will do all they can to help the 19-year-old find himself a new club. Clark reacted to news that he won’t be offered a new contract at the end of the season by tweeting that he was "glad to be out of there”.
Jewell said: "He made a schoolboy error by going on one of the social networking sites and saying that he was glad to be out of here.
"I gave him the opportunity to leave the club for good on Friday when he put his comments on Twitter and I think he’s taken them off and he’s still here and he’s training. We are going to try and help him get another club.”
The Blues boss says the midfielder made a blunder but that the issue has been resolved: "He said he would never say anything bad about the club because he’s been here since he was a kid and that it came out the wrong way. What he meant by it I don’t know.
"But he’s a kid, he’s made a mistake. They aren’t popular decisions I’m making at the moment, but they are honest, professional decisions and if he doesn’t like it I’d rather he said so to my face.
"The matter’s forgotten now. We’ll help his as much as we can to get another club because he’s a decent kid, he’s a decent player, he just made a silly mistake and we move on now. Until the next one.”
Jewell is not a fan of social media such as Twitter: "I don’t know what they gain by it. If I’m going to walk across the road, is it worth me telling the whole world that I’ve walked across the road? Who’s interested?
"I think people who have these sites are quite sad in a way because who cares what they’re doing? Maybe they care what the celebrities are doing.
"I think these sites are probably great if they’re used properly for friends across the world like Facebook, but for high profile footballers to put stuff up, if they don’t think it’s going to get out, they must be stupid because everyone reads it and people have been fined for going on Twitter.”
The Town manager doesn’t think he’d attract much Twitter interest himself: "I wouldn’t even know how to go on it and I wouldn’t have many followers either! I always think on these websites or message boards people can write what they want because they are faceless.
"I’ve seen them but I never go on them, good, bad or indifferent, because they’ve all got different names, user names. Just put your real name and address in and put your face on if you’ve got something to say.
"It’s dead easy to write stuff. A lot of them will be kids and a lot will be fellas who have been at two games a season and heard it on the radio or read it in the paper. And if they’ve read it in the paper it’s obviously not true!”
Jewell says he’ll advise his players to be sensible when using social media in future: "I will consider saying to them to be careful. If they’re used properly these sites are fine, if you use them for friends across the other side of the world. I think that’s a great idea but I think they probably get misused.
"It can be dangerous for players,” he added. "Players have been captured in the past by saying things on Twitter.
"I think it shows a lack of intelligence at times when people announce stuff. All the kids are on the Internet and the press and the next thing it’s on the BBC website and then the news. But who cares whether Rio Ferdinand’s got a new car? I don’t.”