Workington Reds fans were left scratching their heads when national newspapers and other influential media outlets ran a story about the 51-year-old Bryan Roy’s sudden return to the headlines.
Roy was being sentenced for his threats on social media to shoot the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
The former Notts Forest and Ajax winger responded to a tweet calling for Rutte to resign after Pieter Omtzigt helped expose a child welfare fraud scandal with the message ‘You’ll get a headshot soon’, translated from Dutch.
The tweet was reported to the police, and Roy was arrested.
Roy was sentenced to 80 hours of community service at a court in The Hague and was also placed on probation for two years, with a prison sentence of four weeks.
All the subsequent stories go on to outline his top class playing career when Roy made his debut with Ajax in 1987 at the age of 17 as a left winger.
He joined Nottingham Forest for a then club record fee of £2.5million in 1994 and made 84 appearances, scoring 24 goals.
He played 32 times for Holland and was a youth trainer at Ajax until 2015.
But bizarrely most stories refer to Roy’s short stint with non-League Workington, coming out of retirement to play for Tommy Cassidy’s team in 2004, citing nine appearances and two goals.
Roy’ s own Wikipedia page also refers to his stint with the Reds in West Cumbria.
Cumbria Crack can exclusively reveal that Roy never played for Workington.
Trouble is that never happened! Even though there have been calls for Dutch journalists to Reds historian Steve Durham, checking on Roy’s short stay with the Reds.
Durham said: “I’m afraid Bryan Roy joins an illustrious list of Dutch internationals who NEVER played for Workington!”
