The Celtic Rumour Mill Doesn’t Half Churn Out Some Nonsense.

Today outside of my window the sky is a pure blue. It’s been rainy and windy here, but nothing terribly trauma inducing. Odd then that I spent most of the night hearing stories that the game today was off, and that it would “break” in this morning’s papers.

And I wondered, and not for the first time; where do people get this crap from, and why do they spread it around?

I slag the mainstream press a lot, but does anyone really think that if the “guy on the internet” knew something like that this that the TV news and the papers wouldn’t have it?

How do you disguise maintenance crews at Celtic Park?

It’s not so much that some stories cycle through Celtic cyberspace which then turn out not to be true; it’s how many patently ridiculous stories do it. Some of the daftest stuff I’ve read in recent months is also the stuff that has grown and spread like a new variant. It’s difficult to believe at times that smart people could believe any of it.

There are a few common sense rules to follow, I think, when dealing with a story like this.

First, consider the size of the story.

The bigger it is, the more likely it is to be in the papers. If the mainstream press doesn’t have a big story that means there’s probably nothing in it. If it doesn’t make the early editions, then its garbage.

Secondly, even if it seems official double-check the source.

Too many times people spread nonsense that comes from fake Twitter accounts; a good rule of thumb is to look for the blue mark to a Twitter feed; it’ll be a star or a tick or something like that, which denotes an “official” account. Every mainstream outlet has one. Celtic has one. Ibrox’s club has one. Most major journalists have official accounts; you could request one up until a few years ago.

Third, if there’s one thing we should have learned these past few years is that the “in the know” crowd virtually nothing. Their information is, more often than not, dreadful.

A story like this would definitely not break first on the forums.

Tonight’s game goes on.

For some people, confirmation of that didn’t come until John Paul Taylor confirmed what should have been obvious; that the stories were nonsense in the first place.

There was nothing in the papers. Nothing on the radio. Nothing on TV and no announcement from UEFA or the club.

So of course some people needed the SLO to confirm it for them … the kind of people who spread this stuff in the first place.

The rest of us should learn to block out the white noise.