It’s January so you know what that means: only one month until Alan Partridge finally makes his triumphant return to the BBC!
Unfortunately, that is not the subject of this article as we need to induct something from the world of football into Room 433, a concept completely dissimilar to BBC’s Room 101. January is also the time of the year for the bizarrely-named January transfer window and all the rumours that go with it. These rumours can at times border on the ridiculous and it’s about time they were brought to task and that’s exactly what I intend to do.
Long-time readers of Room 433 (well done if you’ve managed to stick with me this long) will remember I inducted the transfer window as a whole into the room back in the heady days of August 2018. Now, yes, while the transfer window as a whole irks me (as do many things such as that one time when Norwich’s home kit was green and yellow but their away kit was yellow and green – ludicrous) it is the rumours bounced around on social media that I’m particularly concerned with today.
Now I’m partial to the BBC Sport gossip column as the next men – indeed I’m sure Ronnie Dog Media give you loads of great transfer news (you never know who might be reading) – yet some of the so-called ITKers (that stands for in the know – one for the kids) seem to be able go on Twitter and claim they’ve got a reliable rumour from a club source and people seem to take it as gospel.
I have no doubt that some of these individuals probably do genuinely know the assistant manager’s wife’s dog’s cousin who feeds them all their valuable information, however, equally, I imagine a lot of them go online to spew some absolute nonsense. I mean how am I really meant to trust a man hiding behind a cartoon mole for reliable transfer news, although to be fair he is one of the more reliable ones.
Moreover, football feels like its just dominated by transfers these days. Can anybody realistically say they started following football because they love a good transfer rumour? No, you started watching football because it’s an entertaining game to watch, a fun game to play, a great way to spend time with mates and buy overpriced alcohol at football stadiums. The point is there’s more to football than transfer rumours so let’s actually enjoy the game instead.
