On no, it’s The Morning Line

As some may have noticed, there’s a Substack thing that has emerged and as with most if not all digital content these days, people have changed the way they consume what they want to read/interact with. The model this website was founded upon is now horribly out of date. I had no idea either. I’m a dinosaur.

I’ve always been in the clicks business and brother business is a boomin’, and this is all about fine-tuning to cope with that expansion.

This blog is entirely the right spot for in-game blogs, but the audience for shall we say the more rapid-fire content no longer uses the same tried and trusted mechanisms that once brought them here.

Some of you have taken issue with contributors that aren’t me, but you need to know that you’re in a tiny, very tiny, ever-so-tiny minority.

The bulk of my readership has historically never left a comment. If an article gets 15,000 views and two regulars express disdain, it is what it is. What it really is, is how the traffic gets here and who that traffic is composed of.

The substack will be rebooting what I did years ago. A daily, rain or shine breakfast-ish blog called, On no, it’s The Morning Line on all things Tottenham and anything else in the neighbourhood that might need a bite taken out of it.

Substack is without adverts, but some content, you will have to pay for, if you want to get at it. Content that I believe is worth the price of admission, and to that end, I will be handing out complimentary paid subscriptions like ravers giving away hugs at 2 am, to this blog’s regulars.

Substack doesn’t have the passing nitwits that blogs such as this can attract, simply because you have to be signed up to comment. It’s a process that is quick, pain-free, and involves you getting plagues with nothing other than a gentle email telling you when I’ve published.

Additionally, the Substack content is only shared by me, with audiences that I want to see it. For example, if I posted links on r/coys, that would be offering an open door for every unwashed Gen X, millennial bleedin’ heart this side of Ontario.

This is content I choose to aggregate myself. An audience to whom I am responsible for drumming up.

Has it worked? Well, there are over 5,000 subscribers so far, and the paid subscriptions went onto double figures within weeks.

There’s no CONTE WANTS £75M ACE fuelled stuff. You can plainly see what there is.

If you’re happy with posting beneath the MSM articles here, that is your prerogative. There’s really no pressure from me. The MSM media reactions are hugely important and very well-read. The numbers are not up for debate.

It is simply the case that nothing stays the same and the audience which comes through the door in greater volume now is not the same beast that it was nearly 20 years ago when I began.

You simply need to sign up for The Boy Hotspur’s newsletter, and you’ll get comped.

Hopefully, you then get nothing you don’t like anymore. In turn, I get to return to regularly publishing for people who haven’t let Football London et al. eat into their brains. Do you know how tiring it is, being told that Paratici is cooking, or that I ought to ‘believe in…’ whatever this season’s myth might be?

If you can hold two thoughts in your head at the same time and are tired of the noise, then this could well do you some good. It’s doing me some good.

I’m not looking for affirmation, by the by. The numbers are already there. If the comment section is a bit flat, who cares? I know I’m getting read, and I know that it’s working – and I’m not asking you for any money.

I think Substack is fucking great, and I endorse this message.

And that’s something I couldn’t publish if I didn’t get to pick my audience for myself, and if you found that grotesquely offensive by the way, you will be further saddened to know that this entire offer was never aimed at you anyway.

Think of the Ricky Gervais sketch.

“They could be following me without me knowing, choose to read my tweet, and then take that personally.

That’s like going into a town square, seeing a big notice board and there’s a notice with guitar lessons, and you go, ‘But I don’t f*cking want guitar lessons!’

He then mimics a complainant dialing the number on the imagined notice and telling the person on the other end of the phone: “Are you giving guitar lessons? I don’t f*cking want any!’

The music teacher replies, ‘Fine, it’s not for you then. Just walk away’ implying this is what Internet users should do when they see anything that they don’t like.

The really bad news is that this place will still have me heavily involved, but there’s now another success story further up the street, as well.

A bad day in Blackrock, indeed.