Daily Record Scammed By Celtic Fan’s Story

The Daily Record is tonight (as ever) the laughing stock of Celtic cyberspace after publishing a fans group’s jokey story as actual news.

The rib-tickling tale of how the Doha Celtic Supporters Club was forced to change its plans for a marathon journey from Doha, Qatar to the Azerbaijani capital Baku after the Iraqi government banned them from the country for stopping for a pee the last time they were there found its way onto The Daily Record website earlier, doubtless posed as an example of how naughty our people are.

The story started with a jokey post on the Doha CSC Facebook page, which read;

“Bus to Qarabag game sorted.
Just up the road. Leaving from the usual spots Tuesday 4th August, pickups at Al Waab Vaults 11.23, Salwa Road Ladbrokes 11.53, Burnbank 12.04. Non members welcome.
Bring cans. Plenty of cans. #Cans”

The notion was quite patently hilarious and cannot remotely be anything other than a joke, as would have been obvious to anyone with half a fraction of intelligence.

Yet we know by now that doesn’t apply to The Record, which spent many years employing the likes of Hugh Keevins and Jim Traynor.

The bus convener then tweeted an “update” on their Twitter feed, telling interested parties that the bus could no longer pass through Iraq because of a previous incident where, during a bus journey back from the Shakhter Karagandy game some years ago, members were caught urinating in public.

“We ar banned from Iraq due to pee stop incident on way back from Karagandy game. Got to avoid now” said the tweet.

It was preceded by tweets such as; “@stengo7 @TheMireCSC2002 Excellent. Leave from Doha Ladbrokes the day before” and “@cochcfc you joining us? Cans essential for the Iran section, things could get difficult ..”

The Daily Record’s intrepid reporters missed the obvious jokes.

They saw a chance for a quick “scoop” and grabbed it.

Tonight the joke is on them, and although they moved quickly to pull the article from their website it can still be found as a cached story and, of course, there are numerous screengrabs doing the rounds of the story itself and their tweet about it.

This isn’t the first time someone has been caught cold by the Celtic fans; there was the time a fans forum invented a Rangers youth player and got the press to bum him up, and there was the fan who convinced Fernando Sandaza that he was an agent for a foriegn club and taped a very sensitive conversation … but this may well be amongst the most hilarious examples of our lazy media falling hook, line and sinker for something that could have come right out of Mad Magazine.

The Doha Celtic Supporters club (and most of the people on Facebook and Twitter) are having a good old laugh tonight at “Scotland’s Favourite Newspaper”, which in the opinion of this writer ought to stick to its principal task for the week of trying to get Hibs to sell Scott Allen to Sevco.

They sure as Hell can’t do the news.

Doha Bhoys, Celtic cyberspace salutes you!