Aaron Wilbraham: Staying off social media is the best thing I did
Aaron Wilbraham says not going on social media was one of the best things he ever did during his playing days.
Shrewsbury Town’s stand-in boss – who has stepped up from assistant in the continued absence of Steve Cotterill – made it all the way to the Premier League during his career.
And after playing for the likes of Norwich City and Crystal Palace without having used it, Wilbraham would advise young players to keep their distance.
“I never went on any social media, it was one of the best things I ever did,” said the 41-year-old. “There’s been a couple of fake profiles made of me, where they’ve got pictures and stuff, they put statuses like ‘tough day in training’.
“My little brother will send me screenshots of it saying ‘is this you?’ I’m like ‘no’. So my brother’s commenting like ‘it’s not even Aaron’ and he’s like ‘don’t be like that bro’, answering my brother back.
“It’s comical really, that people can set up these fake accounts using names.
“My advice is to tell a lot of the lads to stay off it, to be honest. I know there’s a lot of good points, but I remember at Norwich people would be messaging lads after bad games and hammering them.
“It’s like giving anyone your phone number and people can say whatever they want, and you can’t say anything back else you get in trouble with the FA.”
The role of social media for professional footballers has been in the headlines recently after a spate of racial abuse and death threats.
And after the sport’s governing bodies wrote to companies, Wilbraham added his voice to the growing calls for there to be more accountability.
He said: “I was listening to Talksport on the way in the other day and Troy Deeney was on there, I thought he made some great points about it.
“I knew somebody who played with him so got his number to text him and say how well I thought he spoke on the topic and he messaged back saying thank you.
“I think anyone who has a social media account should have to put their passport details in or swipe their passport to even get the account. I’m sure these people would think twice about writing these type of things and wouldn’t be able to set up another account straight away as they’ve already used passport details.
“I can’t imagine it being that hard to set up. Troy spoke about people having betting accounts and having to do that sort of things just to place a £10 bet.
“So why shouldn’t you have to do it when you can say and get away with these type of things? I think it makes sense to put something like that in place.
“I’m sure you’d still get the odd idiot who’d do something but at least it’d be dealt with and you’d know who said it.
“He said he’s still yet to meet a person that would come and say it to his face. If people are going to held accountable for it then I think they’d think twice.”
And what advice would Wilbraham give Town’s young players now?
“There is a lot of good points, I’m not slagging it totally, but concentrate on your football,” he said. “I think a lot of managers don’t like their players on it, you see high profile things that get put online, you’ve got to be careful. My advice to young lads is to just keep their wits about them and be careful.”
