For A Moment There, We Thought The Lincoln Red Imps Groundshared With A Local Metal-Detecting Society

When football fans awoke on Wednesday morning to see that Celtic had lost to the Lincoln Red Imps, they could have been forgiven for thinking that it would be the funniest football story of the day. Celtic, current Scottish Premier League champions, 47-time title winners and former European Cup holders, had slumped to a 1-0 defeat to a semi-professional side from Gibraltar, with a team largely made up of public sector workers including a military policeman, a fireman and a customs officer. It was not a good result, all told.

That said, the Lincoln Red Imps are not as bad as some would make out. For instance, they do not have an average home crowd of 28, and they certainly do not share their ground with the local metal-detecting society.

Those are a couple of demonstrable untruths, made up by Twitter user GeorgeWeahsCousin. First of all, we should state that he is not actually George Weah's cousin. Secondly, for legal reasons, we should stress that literally nothing on this mocked-up graphic is true.

Fucking Hell Celtic pic.twitter.com/JDjmECrcaT
— GeorgeWeahsCousin (@WeahsCousin) July 12, 2016

These non-facts are, of course, intended in the divine spirit of banter. In the long and illustrious tradition of British piss taking, GeorgeWeahsCousin is simply having a laugh. Unfortunately, Sky Sports anchor Mike Wedderburn did not realise this, and read out a couple of his completely made-up facts on television.

Cue perhaps the most glorious moment in the history of sports reporting.

@WeahsCousin pic.twitter.com/sPDquFZygQ
— Chris. (@cfccod) July 13, 2016

In fairness to Mike Wedderburn, this could have happened to any of us. In a world where people make up statistics and facts for no reason other than their own capricious whims, no sports reporter is safe. Blame humanity for this, not Mike Wedderburn. Blame modernity, blame the internet and, more than anything, blame Gibraltar's metal-detecting societies.