By David Owen
October 10 – Sligo Rovers currently reside, it is fair to say, some way below the pinnacle of European football. But the League of Ireland club plays a mean social media game.
Needing to announce the welcome news that striker Ronan Coughlan had signed a new contract on Wednesday, the club – affectionately known as the Bit o’ Red – adopted a rather novel approach. Instead of the usual dry, formulaic press release, it posted an elaborate parody of that Coleen Rooney tweet which, earlier in the day, had supplanted Brexit as the social media network’s prime focus of attention.
“For a few hours now someone who follows us on our personal Instagram account has signed a new contract,” Sligo revealed, continuing:
“There has been so much information talked about this player, much of it by Sligo Rovers fans, friends and family all with our knowledge. After a long time of trying to figure out who it could be, for various reasons, we had a suspicion. To try and prove this, we came up with an idea. We blocked every person on our Instagram from viewing our story except this ONE player.
“Over the past five hours we have posted a series of stories of this player signing his contract to see if it made its way into the Sligo Weekender. And you know what; it’s going to be in the Sligo Weekender tomorrow! The story about the two goals in Cork, the man of the match performances in so many games and his great hair…”
And so on, for a grand total of 214 words.
As surely the whole world knows by now, former England man Wayne Rooney’s wife Coleen transfixed the twitterati with an allegation of how a social media follower had been “consistently informing The SUN newspaper of my private posts and stories”.
Describing in detail an elaborate ruse to unmask the alleged informant, involving false stories and the blocking of all bar one account from viewing her – Coleen Rooney’s – Instagram stories, the post concluded: “I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them. It’s…….Rebekah Vardy’s account.”
Vardy, wife of another ex-England man Jamie, has denied the allegation in a tweet of similar length. “Over the years various people have had access to my insta,” Rebekah Vardy replied, “& just this week I found I was following people I didn’t know and have never followed myself…I’m disgusted that I’m even having to deny this.”
The episode swiftly led to Coleen being dubbed WAGatha Christie, after Agatha, the famous detective fiction writer.
By a complete coincidence, Sligo are “currently taking expressions of interest to be our main sponsor for the 2020 season and beyond”.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1713995178labto1713995178ofdlr1713995178owedi1713995178sni@n1713995178ewo.d1713995178ivad1713995178