Lloyd Jones wins Cambridge's player of the month- exactly as joke by Peterborough United fans intended

Lloyd Jones scores an unfortunate own goal in the Cambridgeshire Derby. Photo: David Lowndes.

There were plenty of smiles and giggles among Posh fans on Wednesday when Lloyd Jones was announced as Cambridge United’s Player of the Month. Not that Cambridge were laughing though.

Last month’s derby that kicked off a whole Twitter controversy was the first league meeting between the sides for 21 years and it may be that long before Cambridge’s Twitter admin, who I can only assume has had a sense of humour bypass, has finished blocking Posh fans.

Media and fans alike, no one was safe from Wednesday’s rabid blocking frenzy that demonstrated a complete overreaction to a harmless joke. Any interaction of any kind with the tweet announcing the result was enough to earn the wrath of Cambridge’s own Victor Meldrew behind the screen.

The whole episode has surely only ensured that, instead of moving on, Posh fans will only try and crash the November poll as well when that comes around.

The social media theory of any engagement is good engagement clearly hasn’t made it down the A14 and it’s a shame that the side that couldn’t muster up enough class on the pitch, couldn’t make up for it off it.

Football works in cycles after all and Cambridge will beat Posh again at some point- it hasn’t happened in the last 24 years mind you- and when their fans laud it up, just as they did when they were above Posh seven games into a 46-game season, I expect Posh’s excellent media team will take it with a wry smile and some grace. After all, it’s football at the end of the day and if you give it out, you have to be prepared to take it.

To recap the events, Lloyd Jones; a hero for Posh fans, after his own goal that settled the derby, was nominated for Cambridge’s Player of the Month for October award. A handful of crafty Twitter users saw the chance to have a bit of a laugh and vote for Jones when an open twitter poll was posted on Cambridge’s Twitter page.

Presumably, those who posted the poll had not accounted for the fact that any of the site’s hundreds of millions of users could cast a vote regardless of having any connection to Cambridge or not and were surprised to see a group of football fans- who are famed for their sense of humour- try and get involved.

With Jones approaching the lead, the poll was mysteriously deleted and a private ballot was held between the club’s season ticket holders to decide the winner, with “illegitimate voting by a group of opposition supporters” blamed for the scrapping of the original poll.

There must have been plenty of red faces among the club’s media teams when their own supporters actually agreed with Posh fans and gave the award to Jones anyway.

At this point, there were two options open to the club- either laugh off the attempts of Posh fans or ignore them entirely.

They chose neither and here we are. Not that any Posh fans will be losing any sleep about missing all of the latest updates from a small League One club.

I may be accused of going over the top but hey, it’s ok. When I tweet this out, it’s not as if the club will see it.