I love my job as a football journalist covering Wolves - but there's a dark side to my work online

These are some of the less offensive messages that have been sent over the past week on X (formally Twitter) or shouted by certain fans toward me while conducting post-match interviews.

They also make up probably less than 0.01 per cent of the interactions I've had with my 48,000 followers and yet these are the comments that you remember the longest.

I've been in this industry for nearly 20 years – this January will represent a decade at the Express & Star and Shropshire Star. You work in journalism, you learn to have a thick skin.

But does that make it acceptable? Should that make it the norm? Should this toxicity be the environment we want young, aspiring multimedia journalists dealing with on a daily basis? I hope not.

The negativity from the outside often coexists with Wolves not performing on the pitch and the latest set of results have brought a new wave of online and in-person abuse from certain quarters.

Audience engagement is a massive part of my job and for that to be a success, social media has been essential for gathering information, expressing opinions and interacting with the (mostly incredible) Wolves fanbase.

I've never had Facebook, never had Instagram, never had Myspace, still don't fully-understand TikTok & when I finally put the pen and microphone down, I'll most-likely delete X (Twitter).

I definitely have a love/hate relationship with the platform – you can't take your eyes off it for better or for worse.

But as a journalist, for breaking news, it's still the first place many will visit, and thus the rocky marriage between myself and X will continue for the foreseeable future.

The fans are hurting, they're hurting badly and you can understand their anger following a wretched start to the season.

As we come out the second international break of the campaign, Wolves are rooted to the bottom of the table, 20th.

Six defeats and a fortunate draw at Nottingham Forest gives Gary O'Neil's men just one solitary point to show during two months of competitive action.

Add to that 21 goals conceded at an average of three per game (comfortably the worst defensive record in the division) plus an early exit in the Carabao Cup and you've got a disgruntled fanbase.

The atrocious start comes off the back of highly-controversial season ticket price hikes where the club hierarchy 'benchmarked' rises to align with 'similar competitors' such as Champions League club Aston Villa, last season's Champions League club Newcastle United, Europa Conference winners West Ham United and London's most affluent club Fulham.

Last weekend's trip to Brentford was seen by many as a 'get-right' game for Wolves. A game where a positive result would get the season back on track.

Scoring three goals away from home and still losing the game comfortably not only saw Wolves' season well and truly off the rails, it lost thousands of passengers in the process.

Many of the loyal fanbase who travel home and away turned on both Fosun and O'Neil.

They pay a lot of hard-earned money and have the right to voice their discontent in any way, shape or form they so choose.

And yet for as frustrated as they are, they can't have any interaction with the ownership or the manager and repeatedly the collateral damage is the journalist.

We're often the bridge between fans and the hierarchy, but frustration quickly turns to anger and when people are angry they often make bad decisions.

A reply to a tweet, a cutting retort, quoting an observation with unnecessary abuse, using profanity, belittling one's worth, questioning their job, ridiculing their opinion – it's all par for the course.

We are accessible on a daily basis, whether that be online or in person – the Wolves squad, Gary O'Neil and Jeff Shi are not.

And so the anger that comes with the poor product they are currently viewing on the pitch is frequently vented in a personal fashion.

Let's address some of this destructive criticism:

'Idiot, why aren't you asking the tough questions?'

This is probably the most common complaint both myself and Liam Keen are asked when things are not going well. It's also the most disappointing.

Integrity and transparency are absolutely essential if you want to succeed in this business.

The tough questions are always asked, but we can only report on the answers we receive.

And sometimes those retorts and explanations are not satisfactory to the fanbase which in-turn triggers the same 'ask the tough questions' response – it's a vicious cycle at times.

'What do you know? You're just a Middlesbrough fan!'

I am indeed a Middlesbrough fan, you can never change the club you support. Coming into this job in 2015, I had no affiliation with the football clubs the newspaper was covering.

But over the years, I have developed a real emotional attachment with Wolves. In my opinion, there hasn't been a better club to cover in the past decade.

Promotion, new ownership, star players, six different managers, memorable wins, cup semi-finals, famous victories, damaging defeats, European football – it's been an honour to cover the club.

And like most fans, I'm also hurting. I hope you can see that in text, analysis videos, post-match interviews and the podcasts.

Social media isn't going away anytime soon and therefore a certain amount of toxicity will always remain toward journalists.

The very small amount of comments and digs thankfully don't affect me, no journalist will ever have a 100 per cent approval rate.

But I have seen good young reporters walk away from the industry because of online abuse – nobody's mental health deserves to be compromised.

In terms of Wolves' season, with Manchester City set to visit Molineux next, it may get worse on the pitch before it gets better.

To those who will inevitably want to voice their grievances, all I ask is to think twice about what you're writing before pressing send.