Kent woman hit by Twitter abuse after Americans confuse her with Super Bowl player

Dee Ford
Getty Images
Hatty Collier26 January 2019

A British woman from Kent has told how she received a stream of Twitter abuse from American football fans who mistook her for a player.

Dee Ford, 47, is regularly bombarded with angry messages from fans because she shares the same name as the Kansas City Chiefs player.

The American footballer, 27, made a mistake in a play-off game which led to his team crashing out of the Super Bowl this week.

Ms Ford, who has the Twitter handle @Dee_Ford, said she received messages from angry fans saying "you ruined my whole year" and "how the f*** do you sleep at night?"

She told The Times: "When I woke up, my phone was flooded with abuse. People were so angry with what happened."

Ms Ford, who is now a devoted fan of American football and supports the Auburn Tigers, said one man told her he had bet on the game and now could not feed his kids.

Her Twitter handle reads: "NOTE. I am not the Auburn/Kansas City Chiefs footballer. I'm a boring surveyor from Kent but now also a firm member of the #AUFamily."

She said she now tries to watch every Auburn Tigers game and even bought a book called American Football for Dummies.

It is the footballer's former team and she said she has met his family when he played at Wembley in 2015 and spoke to him on he phone after the game.

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