Rashford and Bellingham were called false and ‘outright lies’

Misrepresentation is a powerful modern currency. Sometimes it’s in pursuit of establishing a false narrative, sometimes it’s just sloppy, misguided thinking based on assumed truths rather than facts. It is now so common that virtually parts of our lives exist within one myth or another. We are presented with a picture of people like Jude Bellingham or Marcus Rashford when the writer says it is not true when it is true that it is true, even if they think they do. Mailbox recently included a good example:

“Fighting and out-of-the-earth stuff about ‘from the good old days when football was a man’s game…’

Now, I’ve never said, stop ‘bumping’ about it. In fact I’ve written a book challenging this and those who see everything through the false glow of nostalgia, yet usually in a flippant, anxious way, by the person who was attributing it to me. This was not stated as opinion but as fact.

The idea that I look back fondly on my days fighting outside the arena is ridiculous, especially when I’ve said the exact opposite so many times. This is an example of people making things up in their heads at some point and then thinking it’s true, despite any evidence to the contrary. Truth and facts don’t matter, assumptions take their place. I never said the stupid words ‘man’s game’ in anything. In reality and in the spirit of anything this is a pathetic concept I believe. I’m regularly called some kind of wet-saw liberal or a socialist who is some kind of contemporary snowflake by some free speech warriors—who will say that, but hate free speech if you’re saying something they don’t like.

But this misconception will in turn be absorbed by others and thus, in this case, I, become established. Imagine if this happened to you? You say black is black but people say you said it’s white and so you get a reputation for saying black is white and people think you’re an idiot for saying such a thing.

I don’t care if you insult me ​​or call me any name you can think of. Disagree with my music as much as you like it, that’s fine, I don’t mind at all because I might be talking trash, but I do get misrepresented by such careless comments because it affects my creative life.

Obviously I’m just a football writer (twice nominated for Football and Sportsbook of the Year) and you can rightly assume that a silly blathering doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Except I regularly see similar comments, all stemming from the same delusion. I’m also basically a best-selling novelist and my readers devour this make-up rubbish and are shocked to read ‘truths’ that contradict the impression gained from 21 novels – the latest, The Teesside Code is out now – which sometimes feature passing references to Middlesbrough FC.

As you know if you’ve read any, I put a lot of my heart and soul into them. So readers are surprised to find something contrary to what they know. I have to explain that this is just someone’s invention/deception, passed on in prices, as if it were reality. I even brought it up in a story trying to deal with it. Imagine having to do that? I don’t know if that happens or not, but it might affect sales. And I have to get this stuff regularly, it all makes it sound like I’m not a hypocrite.

And it’s just a little off the beaten path, sitting in the west of Scotland overlooking the Firth of Clyde, far away from the madding crowds. It has been pointed out to me that such comments on a popular website have damaged my reputation and I should sue the individual for damages. Obviously I wouldn’t because I’m not important myself or such a valuable thing. Lies about anyone online are legion and somewhat to be expected. Still, the author may have forgotten he wrote it ten minutes after doing so, but I have to deal with the legacy of carelessly understood words and it will continue.

I don’t want to give you the impression that I’m sitting here looking for examples of such misrepresentation, I usually don’t read any of it and if I ever do, I just ignore it, good or bad or indifferent. And I would have missed it too if it hadn’t been pointed out to me directly by a reader who knows me well. I just thought it highlighted an issue that should affect people far more important, famous and less Freeham than me in far more profound ways. And it’s a reminder to all of us that what we pass off as truth, not mere opinion, when we don’t really know, knows more than this person does (even if he’d read enough of any of the hundreds of pieces and any of the 24 books to absorb them, he’d probably absorb them). Modern media certainly encourages us to think we know people.

Imagine how bad it must be for someone like Marcus Rashford or Jude Bellingham? In people’s comments and by disrespectful journalists, websites constantly make their living judging and outright lying. People think they actually know you but only see you through this chain of false narratives, creating an impression of what you look like and what you think about anything, which can be completely wrong.

I have a particularly vigilant group of readers who take such misunderstandings from me very much to heart and this is an example of how such falsehoods affect a wide group of people, not just the individual concerned. Again, it must be really frustrating for friends and families of famous people to have to put up with this opinion as the truth all the time. It must make it difficult to maintain who you are when you’re publicly present in so many, often conflicting, contexts.

If you answer this, good or bad, I probably won’t read it but someone will. Keep this in mind when you casually assert something as fact that you don’t know to be true and, if you’ve been paying attention, know that it isn’t.

Read next: Why Manchester United traitor Paul Scholes went too far with his attack on Marcus Rashford