The Liverpool team on an open-top bus showing off their Premiership title. AFP Photo

Paul Kennedy

I’ve been to dozens of open-top bus parades over the years. Back when I was a kid growing up in Liverpool, it was an almost annual event.

We’d walk the short distance from my family home to the main road where the bus was scheduled to pass.

Wait an hour or so, then boom, gone in 30 seconds. Just catching a glimpse of one of my heroes holding the particular piece, or pieces, of silverware won that season was a fabulous sight.

But that was more than 40 years ago. Different times, for sure.

This week, Liverpool held another open-top bus parade around the city to celebrate winning the Premier League title.

This held more significance because the last time they won the league was 2020, COVID time, meaning any possible gathering with so many people in close proximity was never going to be allowed.

That’s why Monday’s event was much more meaningful, with an estimated 1.5 million people turning out along the 16km route.

It was, for the most part, the perfect day. But then, as we all know, it was marred by one man who decided to drive somewhere in a hurry, injuring dozens of people as his car ploughed through the crowd.

What followed was nothing short of a tsunami of misinformation and conspiracy theories flooding social media sites.

Horrific videos of the incident were immediately shared, without the slightest thought for any of the many injured.

Even when the police acted fast to confirm they had arrested a 53-year-old white British man from Liverpool believed to be the driver, and that the incident was not terror-related, the nonsense from netizens kept on coming.

“Don’t believe the mainstream media.”

“Just because he’s British doesn’t mean he’s not Muslim.”

“Why police saying ‘believed’ to be the driver? Don’t trust a word they say.”

Even aside from the terrible events that occurred in Liverpool city centre, being a football fan these days means we are constantly bombarded with a barrage of bull on our social media feeds, coming from keyboard warriors or so-called ‘football-fluencers’, who are paid to spread gossip about which player is transferring where.

There are zero checks and balances in place, and we the fans just follow along like dumb sheep hanging on every word of someone just because they have plenty of followers.

There’s no World Cup this summer, and no Euros, limiting the topics I can write about in this column.

This has left me with two choices. Write rubbish for the next three months, spin any old piece of speculation, and fool the reader in the hope of getting more clicks and shares, or option B: call it a day, and write this column no more.

My integrity as a journalist has got the better of me, so I’ve gone for the latter. VNS