On Twitter, tweets and twats

Hallelujah. Twitter is in decline. Over the past year, since Twittermania gained real traction, we have been treated to the innermost thoughts, and daily minutae in the lives of sporting stars.

Now coaches, managers and sporting authorities the world over are banning their charges from Twittering. Is an ex-twitterer a Twat?

At first, Twitter gave us sports fans hope - a chance to learn the real, undiluted truth.

Would Dean Richards blog that Woolies were doing a Halloween special so he had just popped in to buy a gross of fake blood?

Would we learn that Gazza breakfasted on Chateau Vidaflore?

Would her Twitterings expound upon Serena's ambition to assassinate errant line judges. Presumably many of her childhood ghetto friends grew up to a career in murder.

But no. Twitter revealed sporting celebrities for the generally dull, mono-dimensional beings we suspected they might be all along. More of what Becks was doing on the loo rather than to Rebecca of that ilk. Big Sol, we discovered, spends more time beating eggs than his wife.

And so we called them boring. Ironically, when one isn't boring, we castigate them as publicly and painfully as we can. George Best, Ian Botham, and now Andre Agassi.

He lost a French open due to a slipping syrup, but won Wimbledon on drugs.

Imagine his twitter. "Wig slipping. Need to fix it. Have glue. Dilemma - Stick or sniff?"

No wonder he used to hide his head under a towel between games. And we thought that mirror was for vanity!

Sports people become stars because we perceive their lives to be glamorous. Twitter has shown us by and large they are not. Sure, they get paid a heap, and live the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but when the chips are down, they still crap brown.

So it's great when the mavericks arise, and restore our faith in the concept of sporting idolatry.

And please, sports stars, Twitter, if you must, but make it interesting.

If Martina is affected by a bad line call, we want to hear she means taking one just before a random dope test!