Friends, countrymen, football fans, we’ve wandered into pre-season. As football fans we’ve been treated to what has arguably been the best World Cup in many of our our lifetimes. So to fill the void many of us make a point to focus on the upcoming pre-season friendlies and of course, the foul mistress that is the ‘transfer rumour’.
There once was a time where to try and get a peep in the window as to who your club were supposedly looking at signing was a very straightforward process. You’d buy a newspaper, turn to the backpages and subsequently throw yourselves at the mercy of the sports journalist. The inception of the digital age may even have allowed such opulence as a ten minute browse on “Ceefax” or “Teletext” (in the UK), a digital format developed by the BBC and other terrestrial television channels that allowed fans to check the scores of games on matchday. Soon ‘rumour’ sections were to follow. Daily reports of what player was linked to what club, supposed quotes from various sources and a brief synopsis and overview of a would-be transfer. In effect, the internet was finding its feet with regards to the average Joe having access to such folly. Digital evolution meant it was inevitable that soon anyone with a ‘dial up’ internet connection in their home would soon be clicking online, checking their favourite website for team news, scores and even developing or joining ‘fan forums’, where they could interact with fellow fans and of course goad their rivals. We’ve come a long way…
These days you can go about your business, take a cursory glance at your Iphone (other digital devices are available), as you take the train to work/eat dinner/live your life, and catch up on anything regarding a team or player you have a passing interest in. The vast array of media available afforded to us via the internet is staggering. Who’d have thought even a decade ago that YOU, the “fan”, could be given an insight into your heroes lives, let alone be given a platform 24/7 to get in touch with them?
Having an insight into a players World can be genuinely fascinating, in-turn it can be painfully mind-numbing. As curious beasts, us football fans open ourselves up to mediums such a Twitter, Instagram etc. Where else could you get to see Mario Balotelli playfully pointing a shotgun at you (all be it down the lens of a Samsung Galaxy), or expose yourself to the leftfield musings of self-styled “Sweet and Tender Hooligan” Joey Barton? It’s a savage garden my friends.
And it’s not just our heroes who throw themselves open to the public and make an effort to ingratiate themselves to their fans. No, this is the age of the ‘superfan’. Get yourself a Twitter account. Make a few influential friends, get them to tell their friends and “followers” how amazing and insightful a human being you are. Make the odd controversial statement. Even start your own online blog or fanzine! You’ll get what’s coming to you, the World and everything in it! Of course this is a crude and (probably) cynical doff of the cap to the power of social media. It’s not just the World of football and sport that has a fervent level of interest that lends itself to online propaganda, just about any level of entertainment, politics, socio-economics has a big tick next to the box it lives in.
But I digress, scuttling back to the transfer rumours. That word, “rumours”, it’s malevolent in it’s imagery, something potentially disingenuous and misleading. Couple it with “transfer”, a chance for progression, something positive, and we’re in double-barreled oxymoron territory.
A quick scroll through Twitter (for example) and you’re hit by a Tsunami of speculation as to what’s going on behind the scenes of just about any registered football club on the Planet! The yearning for information regarding football clubs and their activity in the transfer market is palpable. Many clubs even run a dedicated “rumours” section on their official website. To many that’s a bridge too far. Why do they do it? Because the vast majority of people read it! Supply and demand. Give the people what they want, let them eat cake and wash it down with a tall glass of bubbling speculation.
The irony isn’t lost that this article itself is brought to you via the wonders of modern technology and will be pimped on Twitter and other social media to get one writers thoughts across. It pays to take anything with a metaphorical question-mark next to it with a healthy pinch of salt. Those who seemingly whip themselves into a frenzy questioning a “source”, is the purveyor of this wisdom an “ITK” (in the know), a sage, or a mystic? The reality is emphatically no, they’re not! They’re just like you and I, they go to bed and wake up, just like me and you, they breathe the same air, dream the same dreams, want the same things etc… Yet still, even with this reality digested, will you scratch that itch? You know you’ll feel better for that moment, but you’ll come away frustrated and no better off or wiser for the experience.
So go, go now, these websites are waiting for your hits. Your jailers, the tormentors who have “inside sources” or a brother in law who acts as a football-agent are awaiting your comments. Don’t give up, the future’s yours (as long as you have a Twitter account).
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