Today marks three years to the day that Wolves completely embarrassed Nottingham Forest on social media.
Football clubs are now very prominent on the likes of X, Instagram and TikTok, as they seek to build their following and connect and engage with fans.
Largely, clubs use social media accounts to provide fans with updates about the team, and other goings-on at the club.
But occasionally, club admins go beyond their usual duties and provide some more light-hearted content.
And this was the case at Wolves after facing Nottingham Forest a few years ago.
Remembering Wolves’ iconic ‘Playtime’s over’ tweet
Wolves and Nottingham Forest games have sometimes been a little spicy.
It is one of those games where there is usually an edge to it – and that was the case back in the 2022/23 season.
Ahead of the game, the Nottingham Forest X account posted a message that featured an image of striker Emmanuel Dennis sitting down with three wolf pups.
They captioned their post ‘Playtime’. That then set the tone for the game – and mostly for Wolves.
Wolves then went on to win, with Ruben Neves scoring the only goal of the game from the penalty spot.
After the match, the Wolves social media admin spotted an opportunity to mock Forest following their strange pre-match post.
The admin posted a picture of a tree stump with an axe in it, with the caption ‘Playtime’s over’. And on the billboard behind, the message ‘Safe Trip Back Notts Forest’ could be seen.
To date, the post has over 18,00 reposts and more than 160,000 likes, making it one of the most successful in terms of reactions and engagement.
What the managers said
The post from Wolves was lapped up by fans and did huge engagement numbers.
It was as though that message from Forest inspired the Wolves players in the game, and Neves even admitted that he had posted it in the Wolves WhatsApp group before Forest deleted it.
After the game, Wolves interim manager at the time Steve Davis said (via talkSPORT): “Yes, we were aware of it.
“We were going to use it in the talk but Ruben said he put it on the players’ chat so I didn’t need to say any more.
“Those sort of things used to happen on the pitch. That doesn’t happen so much now, but it gave us an edge.”
It was a questionable decision from the Forest admin to post such a message, and it was one that Steve Cooper couldn’t really understand, as he later said (via talkSPORT): “It wasn’t a good thing from the club and it wasn’t helpful.
“But it’s been dealt with. The important thing is about learning from it.
“It didn’t have an impact on the performance or the result; I’m not going to use that as an excuse.
“Professional players of both teams won’t need a social media post to be motivated to get a result.
“It wasn’t a good moment for us. But we need to draw a line under it, trust that the club will deal with it and move on.
“It wasn’t helpful. But at the same time, it’s done now. It won’t happen again, and we need to move on.”