Neil Lennon quits twitter

Neil Lennon has closed his twitter account @officialneil.

The Celtic boss had built up over 200,000 followers but after almost three years has decided to quit the popular social networking site.

Lennon used twitter to  get his views directly over to fans but like many celebrity users was often targeted by trolls who he would sometimes bite back at.

Lennon was one of the few football managers using twitter with most bosses wary of the site which has constantly brought about unwelcome publicity for players.

Two months ago Lennon found himself involved in a twitter controversy when Rowan Vine of Hibs joked about getting his ‘mate’ Alan Shearer involved referencing an incident in 1998 when he was kicked in the head by the England skipper.

Lennon noted Vine’s comments which were, as usual, passed off as humour and banter but resulted in a censure for the Hibs man from the SFA.

In October Charlie Mulgrew was fined after tweeting a picture of a naked lookalike with Lennon quick to recognise the dangers of the site.

“I’ve had to warn the players about Twitter,” he disclosed. “Not just the players but their wives as well.

“I’ve told the players anything damaging the reputation of the club will be heavily fined – and we might have to stop them using it altogether. We have made them clear on that.

“There have been episodes even before this week where I have taken a dim view on it. We’ve made it clear that there is a certain line you can’t cross.

“And Charlie putting up naked pictures wasn’t one of his brighter ideas, I have to say. So he’ll get punished for that.

“I use Twitter myself and there are a lot of good things you can use it for. For example, I did a 10k run the other week and raised a lot of money for charity.

“If I hadn’t used Twitter I probably wouldn’t have raised nearly as much. So there are benefits but, like everything else, there are also drawbacks.

“I have sympathy for the players in terms of how easy it is to get dragged into something. But they should be experienced enough to know what they can and cannot do on a public site.”