In The Net by Oliver Phillips

The other week a fan found himself in the same company as a club director and, in anticipation of this, asked others on the Net if there was any question they wanted him to pose the director.

Now this particular fan may well have stated his intentions to the club official, asked the questions on the record, and, as faithfully as he could, related the answers on the Net.

Conversely a fan, meeting a club official in a social situation, may overhear items of interest and, without informing the official, reproduce off-the-record observations on the Net.

At the moment, the Net is not policed, is not subject to the laws of libel and anyone with mischevious intent, can print just what they like and pass it off as fact.

They can reprint gossip without fear of retaliation or legal action yet, because of this, the Net can provide the starting point for investigative journalism or the beginning of a rift between player, club or individual.

Now immediately I have ventured to suggest such a thing, the observation appeared to be taken either as a criticism of the Watford Mailing List or a further example of my resenting new developments in the area of communication.

Because one fan shouts foul and abusive language or starts to fight, it does not mean that the entire culture of football support is based on foul-mouthed thuggery.

So why should pointing out the liabilities of mischievous Internet users, be taken as anti-the-Net.

Make no mistake: I would love to have a monopoly of and be the only source of information on Watford FC. What journalist wouldn't?

No Hotline, websites, faxed press releases, radio broadcasts, just queues of Hornets devotees waiting after a week of total silence to find out just what the Hornets have been up to, as revealed only in The Watford Observer.

Lovely, one could get carried away with such delusions of exclusivity and grandeur, but hopefully I live in the real world.

We have always set ourselves out as a paper of record and while individual opinion and observation is part and parcel of the coverage, our aim is to present the facts, some details of which may already have been revealed elsewhere.

Now, I was going to give you an example of the type of damage that can be unwittingly perpetrated on the Internet, and just to show you how out of touch I was with this form of communication, I will go ahead anyway.

Talking one pre-season, I asked the manager about a particular player. He explained, off the record, that the player was not in his immediate plans because he was overweight. In fact, the manager, travelling round the one-way system in Watford one afternoon, claimed that he found himself in the car behind said player, who, in the space of 10 congested minutes, consumed three pork pies.

This seemed to confirm to the manager that the player was not making as his priority, a reduction of weight in time for the season. The player was not selected at the outset of the campaign and, a couple of months later, at the club's annual meeting, the manager was questioned on this subject.

The manager explained the reasons and then, in a confidential manner, informed the shareholders of what he had seen. The anecdote was well known to me off the record, and it was understood that although mentioned to shareholders, it remained very much unprintable.

In such cases, should I entertain any doubts, I check with the official but the claim that Joe Bloggs ate three pork pies in a few minutes when he should be dieting, could have been libellous if printed.

The player might successfully argue that he was not eating pies but just using some lip salve or such like and that the manager was mistaken in his unsupported claim.

In fact the manager migh have made up the entire incident, to get us off his back for not playing the particular individual. Such things have been known.

Had that anecdote been true and then been publicised, the player might have felt humiliated publicly; the long-term relationship with the manager damaged beyond recall and the silly, indulgent professional might have been treated with even greater suspicion by any club considering signing him.

Now, I was going to say, that had the Internet been really established in those days, the anecdote may have been publicised that way and leaked to all corners of the football world.

I was going to cite that as one of the reasons why, for instance, Graham Taylor was so circumspect with his address to shareholders this year. Someone on the Mailing List commented that he said nothing which any reasonably observant supporter would not have deduced. But that has not always been the way: often shareholders have picked up some choice tit-bits or indications of same.

Now, it has to be far more guarded, otherwise things like that pie-eating incident could cease to be a private anecdote.

But, imagine my surprise when I set about writing this, to be told by an Internet-user that I had a point in my comments about responsible use of the Internet.

"A few years back, the manager mentioned about a player eating pies and I put that out on the Internet," he told me. "I realise that I should not have done that. The remarks were meant to be private and I would not do that now."

It was interesting to hear that the Internet user had come to terms with what should and should not be repeated, but every day there is a newcomer to the medium and there is no reason why the Internet should not reflect the various mores of society with the unscrupulous, the midguided and mischievous clicking alongside the committed, reasoned and responsible.

So, I discovered that my pie-eating example of how things could be misused by the Internet was very much a case of closing the stable door long after that particular horse had bolted.

Obviously, not too many read that incident because I did not notice any chants about "who ate all the pies" when the player did return to the first team.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.