Despite touting myself of something of a Social Media guru as part of my web des ign agency (www.adp-web-design.

com (shameless plug alert)), I really did not thi nk Twitter would take off the way it has done for non-league clubs. The Waltham Forest FC Twitter account was launched on the 26th of January 2010, and back then, it was nothing more than a feed of articles being published on th e club website, and a couple of score updates, from our 3-0 win over Leyton. It was the start of the 2010-11 season which saw frequent match updates, and thi s is where the potential of Twitter was really harnessed for non-league clubs. Non-league football is often seen as a place where pen and paper rules supreme, but thankfully, most clubs do now seem to have one moderately tech-savvy person who has a smartphone capable of running a Twitter application. Towards the end of the 2005-6 season, a Dartford supporter began texting half an d full-time scores of the divisions matches to a member of each club. This worked well at the start, but clubs soon stopped texting results through, and the serv ice was soon stopped. The we had the NLN24 attempts at running a non-league vidiprinter. The idea was fantastic, and the service worked flawlessly (most of the time) on desktop compu ters. What I could never figure out and this is perhaps the reason NLN24 are no more is that the service didnt work on even the newest mobile phones! This would have surely been the place it should have worked before anywhere else , but obviously, NLN24 thought otherwise. We are now in a position where within a few seconds, I can find out the scores o f the majority of Division 1 North matches, as theyre taking place. Some clubs po st score updates, while others, us included, post updates of any major events (t his is also very useful when it comes to writing match reports!) Aside from running match updates, I really saw the usefulness of Twitter at the start of last season. Rod Lewis, our former club photographer was looking for a local club where he could hone his skills. Great Wakering Rovers manager Dan Trenkel retweeted one of Rods messages, and withi n a couple of hours, we had an official club photographer for the first time. At the time of writing, the clubs Twitter account is fast approaching 850 followe rs, an amazing feat when you consider our crowds! I recently attended an event at the Essex FA, based on social media and communit y integration. While interesting, the guest speaker unfortunately missed the poi nt of Twitter at grass-roots level completely. The FAs guides on social media are not even worth talking about, but thats not really anything new. And this is where non-league has really begun to show its ingenuity and resource fulness. Almost on their own, clubs, and especially Ryman League ones have creat ed a very strong, but extremely useful online community, and one which will be m ore indispensable than ever in the 2012-13 season. You can follow us on Twitter: @walthamforestfc, or Andrzej Perkins: @AndrzejPerk ins