ITV.com expands football offering and bigs up TFT

God bless ITV.com.

They know how to pitch bloggers (from a PR point of view), and that's a great start.

They also know how to flatter a guy, and flatter me they have.

For their blushworthy praise of this here humble blog, click here.

Why is ITV.com suddenly linking to blogs? It's all part of their increasing football offering, which is seemingly coming thick and fast in order to match the broadcaster's soon-to-be-massive profile on the live football TV scene.

My personal favourite aspect of said new online content (except the TFT-worship, natch) is that ITV's live matches from the tellybox will be simulcast online. I live in a flatshare with two women. Simulcast is going to be a bloody godsend.

Regular readers will also know that I have a bit of a mancrush on ITV's approach to the FA Cup's early rounds, appealing to the grassroots supporter in me with their online coverage of the preliminary rounds of the Cup, and even providing a page to upload footage of the games they can't send a camera to. I heart social media, and that could be a damn cool example.

Please call it CupTube!

This next feature makes me hugely jealous: The Gloryhunter.

The jealousy stems from my petulant inner tortured writer, a little fella that's spent years trying to come up with an excuse to do something unusual involving being stupid at different football grounds and turning it into a book and serial documentary. The Gloryhunter is an idea I wish I'd had.

It's a simple but beautiful concept. Man ditches Spurs (wise), draws new team at random (less wise), follows them until they lose (wise) and then switches to the team that beats them (wise).

I have two concerns for him in his quest to leave every match as a supporter of the winning team. First, can he deal with the emotional confusion of a draw? And second, he's drawn Grimsby - he needs a lucky cup draw to get out of the bottom tier, as most teams that beat League Two sides will be from their own division. Good luck with that.

These goodies and more now live at ITV.com/football