Sunderland striker Darren Bent gets Twitter username on his boots

Sunderland and sometime England footballer Darren Bent has provided something of a nadir in celebrities and their obsession with Twitter - he has had his Twitter username, @DBTheTruth, stitched into his football boots.

I was first tipped off about this by @conkinho, who had seen it on Soccer AM, but have only just come across the image below to back things up.

Picture from The Spoiler.

Bent, who previously endeared himself to former employers Tottenham Hotspur by swearily Tweeting his frustration at delays in his transfer, is probably the most infamous footballer in terms of Twitter use.

On the back of Bent's rant, Spurs banned players, who had previously included Jonathan Woodgate, from using Twitter and implemented a Social Media Policy. Bent himself took a break but came back with a vengeance and started a follower race with a journalist, who won.

Darren Bent's diplomatic transfer negotiations

Along these lines, Bent recently Tweeted an 'Important Announcement' - that his 20,000th follower would receive a special prize. Might I be the one to point out, Darren, that you are over 5,000 followers short of this target, and that people who might care about the prize are likely to wait until you're a bit nearer the goal (no pun intended) in order to stand a chance of winning.

Darren preaches to the crowd

Fellow North East footballer Jozy Altidore also got himself into a bit of bother when he let slip that he had been dropped from the Hull City team because he showed up late, incurring the wrath of his manager Phil Brown. Given the content of the majority of footballers' Tweets, and their capacity to cause strife, I'd say Twitter as sporting self-promotion has a limited shelf life.