Yesterday afternoon at 15.25 all was quiet on the Southampton Football Club front, within an hour it was chaos on the internet.
If you had been looking at one of the internet's news gathering outlets yesterday afternoon you would have thought that it was a very quiet day in terms of Saints news, in the 7 hours prior to 15.25 there had been a total of around 20 stories connected to Southampton Football Club, most were fairly mundane and four of them were written on this site alone, nothing much to get the blood flowing.
Then at 15.27 there was a headline coming up from the telegraph claiming that "Manchester United launch shock bid for Sadio Mane" it was a fairly innocuous story in effect amounting to a few lines from their chief football correspondent Jason Burt that United had put in a bid for Mane a week ago and presumably (and it doesnt mention this) it was turned down as Mane was still with Saints.
But the effect on the internet was instantaneous, within 8 minutes the Daily Star had responed with a story of their own, within an hour 25 media outlets had produced their own stories and by the end of the day over 100 stories had been published via various bona fida media outlets plus god knows how much more on social media.
Today has seen yet more stories claiming everything from a claim that Sadio Mane wants a move to Manchester United to the fact that Saints themselves have denied that there was a bid from United and that they have stated that he is not for sale, strangely these stories are not as widely spread as the "Mane to United" ones still persisting some 20 hours after the original rumour.
What this emphasises is how easy it is for someone to start a rumour with very little substance and how quickly it can develop and cause mass panic amongst Southampton supporters.
So why did Jason Burt put out this story, well presumably it wasn't because he had made it up on the spot for a laugh, someone must have told him they had heard that United had bid for Mane, now I don't know much about Burt so I don't know how good his sourcs where, but given how small the actual story was I would assume that he wasn't hearing it direct from Luis Van Gaal.
Someone with an interest would have whispered in his ear, perhaps it was from United themselves keen to use the media to stir up Mane and his agent, after all United used this tactic to try and lure Nathaniel Clyne to Old Trafford earlier this summer, even using their own TV Station to claim a deal was imminent.
Perhaps it was Mane's agent trying to get interest in his client, this could be for one of two reasons, firstly he could be angling for a move for his client to a big club for the obvious reason it would make he, the agent money. Secondly it could be to stir Saints up into offering Mane a better contract, again something that could make him money.
Thirdly it could be a third party trying to stir up interest, its common for these third parties to go to football clubs and players and try to broker deals and that could be the case, indeed Mane and his agent may not even have been contacted at this stage.
Lastly it could have been a source close to Saints themselves, although this is highly unlikely unless we were desperate for money, something I can only presume we are not.
The end result was a media feeding frenzy with headlines all over the place with none of them saying much different than Burt did in his initial piece, although most used artisic licence to try and grab attention.
Social media went mad and some Saints supporters could not have reacted with a more bedwetting attitude had Mane been photographed on the pitch at Old Trafford wearing a Manchester United shirt, it seems some have little confidence in what we are trying to do as a club.
The reality is that nothing much has changed at St Mary's from 15.24 yesterday afternoon, a dozen or so years ago a story such as his would not have provoked much reaction, but the likes of twitter and facebook and the like have enabled football supporters to work themselves nto a lather at stories that have little substance but suddenly appear to, I can see why, over 100 headlines plus millions of social media comments ead people to believe that its the truth.
The reality is that like the popular headline from WW2 and teatowels these days we need to keep calm and carry on, if someone shouts it enough times it may feel like its the truth, but that doesn't mean that it is.