Ashley-Paul Robinson[]
Ashley-Paul Emmanuel Robinson (born 5 December 1989) was the first footballer to ruin his career using a social networking website.
The 19-year-old was in Crystal Palace's youth academy when he secretly booked a trial with Premier League outfit Fulham.
The soul of discretion, Robinson opted to post a message on infinitely popular time-wasting tool Facebook stating: 'Ashley-Paul is goin fulham on monday. If i pull dis of im on dis ting!!!'.
As if that weren't enough, he followed this up with the message: 'Ashley-Paul Is Travling 2 Bath With Fulham Fingers Crossed. (Im lukin 2 Get Sum Tips Of Jimmy Bullard. He's ON DIS TING NO HYPE LOL.'
Despite cleverly making his statement almost incomprehensible to anyone with a working knowledge of the English language, Robinson surprisingly found himself in some trouble as Crystal Palace sacked him and Fulham decided they were better off without someone who thinks 'on dis ting' is a legitimate phrase. Fulham also issued a formal statement denying that Jimmy Bullard is 'on any ting'.
Robinson is widely credited with starting the trend for players announcing their actions via social networking sites. In a recent Confederations Cup game between Brazil and the USA, Real Madrid new boy Kaka used his mobile phone to tell his Twitter followers that: 'this is easy, gonna score in a minute, LOL' while US defender Jay DeMerit mournfully posted: 'another corner, probs have to clear this off the line' on his page.