Seems that you don't need Premier League agents and Press Secretaries to fabricate footy nonsense these days.

Oh yes, we're used to all the exaggerated stories of big money football .. Arsene Wenger actually spending decent wonga on a player .. Robbie Keane being worth £20million etc; but the same thing goes on much lower down the soccer spectrum as well.

Imagine new Bradford Park Avenue striker Rory Patterson's surprise when he was congratulated on an impressive hat-trick against FC Sotogrande for his new employers during the club's pre-season tour of some of the best sides in Spain. Quite a way for the former FC United of Manchester hitman to announce his arrival at the proud old former Football League club.

Except Rory was actually in Majorca at the time. And FC Sotogrande don't actually exist .. well, in nothing more than a club that runs a Sunday league team.

BPA bosses were forced to admit to a large slice of fabrication, stating that: "We have to say that some of the quality of teams we played were not to the strength that we were initially led to believe," while fans on the club's website are sceptical over whether any games were played at all.

And commenting on the hat-trick from goal hero Rory, director Kevin Hainsworth said:

"One of the guys who played for us was also called Patterson, but was not Rory. We weren’t 100 per cent about it. It was a bit of a wind up on our part to see how people would take it."

No no, you misunderstand. A wind-up is putting pepper in your team-mate's boxer shorts, or pretending for a couple of seasons that Ade Akinbiyi is worth £5million.

Making up fixtures and scorers equates to the inability of a grown man to put his Subbuteo set away.

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