BfB

Phil Parkinson is not joining Bolton Wanderers as manager and – and I say this as a seasoned watcher of rumours – it seems that he was never joining Bolton Wanderers as manager so why was so much mental energy wasted on thinking that he would?

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes – Mark Twain

On the surface Parkinson – a man born near Bolton but long since used to moving where his career dictates – is a decent fit for the remit of bringing a once Premier League club back to its former glories. Indeed that is the job he is doing now at Bradford City where one could argue he has hit something of a ceiling having had a few years in the same division. The logic is rough but from it one can get two and another two and sum something like five.

As a rumour it does not want for credibility. It seems like something that could happen regardless of if it will happen which is why somebody made it up.

And let us make no mistake, dear reader, rumours are not spontaneous. Someone somewhere makes them up and circulates them. Every manager move, every player suggestion, every report in the local paper, every whisper on a website is made up by somebody to serve some agenda.

Let us deal with the most easy first. Some people make up rumours and put them online for kicks. I’m going to do it now: City are signing Lionel Messi. You do not believe it because it has no credibility. For obvious reasons.

Change Messi to Bastian Schweinsteiger then credibility is still stretched but with the connection that he is German and Bradford City are owned by the German pair of Edin Rahic and Stefan Rupp then the credibility grows. Albeit by the most tiny increments.

Change Bastian Schweinsteiger to Nick Proschwitz and without having any reason to do it we have a real enough sounding rumour. If Simon Parker is short of useful work to do (Heaven forbid) then I’m sure he can make 400 words out of “Internet theorists talking crazy talk about these Proschwitz rumour” by the Thursday copy deadline.

Creditability

Outside of mischief making the rumour in football is a useful tool in negotiations and publicity. So useful that it seems that there are swathes of the football media for whom speculation has replaced reporting or investigation as a modus operandi. Repeating rumours has become what the back pages of newspaper are for.

Take, for example, the recent coup d’état at Manchester United where the appointment of Jose Mourinho when it happened was almost ignored whereas the rumours that it would happen – which came minutes after the end of the FA Cup final – were given blanket news coverage.

Those reports were not the same inspired piece of journalistic guesswork. They were rumours seeded by someone (or perhaps someone’s agent) in what seems to be a protracted negotiation around Old Trafford.

Almost all rumours that have any creditability are the same.

Obvious

If you read that Proschwitz is likely to sign for Bradford City then someone is behind the rumour (well, I am behind that one, and you just saw me make it up above) be it Proschwitz and his representatives trying to promote his name and try get him a move to any club, or perhaps trying to get him an improved deal at his current club by making him seem wanted.

Or it is nothing to do with Proschwitz and it is someone at Bradford City (again, it is not) trying to put pressure on Jamie Proctor to sign a new contract on the understanding that if he does not then someone else is waiting in the wings to take his deal.

Or it is Bradford City showing an obvious hand to Proschwitz to say to him that he is wanted, or testing the reaction to his signing, or to indicate to anyone interested that they are in the market for a striker, or to suggest that they are in the market to appease these fans, or it is the club releasing information that has happened in a way that best serves their aims.

A rumour could be any of those things but the one thing you can be certain of is that it will not be the result of investigative journalism uncovering information and sharing it with you.

Proposition

One could trace the rumour linking Phil Parkinson to Bolton Wanderers back to source if one wanted to. My guess would be that it originated from someone near to the appointment process for the next manager at The Trotters who was looking to put pressure on the other people being interviewed but that is only speculation on my part.

It could have easily been a show from Phil Parkinson’s side to underline the support he has amongst fans who expressed horror at the prospect of his moving over the Pennines.

Without knowing who is behind the rumour – which was, let me remind you, a fiction – it is impossible to say what purpose it was created to serve.

There is a story in football about the free transfer bound senior pro listed on the off chance on March deadline day and snapped up for £250,000 “and not a penny more”. The art of negotiation is in making the other party feel that the market more favours your side. The rumour in football is another way of achieving that.

The rumour (if it works) engages the emotion of supporters and so we are being used as a bargaining point in someone else’s negotiation whether it suits our ends or does not. The football media is a willing accomplice in this but let us not kid ourselves that it is not our clicks, eyes, and interest that make that viable. We like to think that enshrined as consumers of the football industry product we are King and Queens, and are always right as is the customer’s mantra.

As football supporters we need to demand that our media (including BfB) deal more in talking about facts (and what results from those facts) and less about fanciful propositions, reacting to what has not happened and repeating what someone else said.

Until we do that we will carry on being pawns.