Enthusiastic football fan bloggers may face libel action

the posters are not hoogilans atall

Jane, You may want to get your facts right before writing such tripe..lazy Journalism at best..

by the way:

Hooligan:
noun a violent young troublemaker.

Doesn't quite fit the makeup of the 70 year old female pensioner called Halfpint who was one of those that the judge ordered the identity to be revealed.

please read the following link (the court papers)and then i look forward to reading an apology to "the hooligans" after you realise what has been said.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2007/2375.html

Football hooligan bloggers???

The title to this news story is worse than the comment's that was made from the posters of that site. lol.

Good luck to those poster's who are being taken to court.

What a typical piece of lazy journalism from an armchair pundit, who obviously has no knowledge of the subject or situation she is talking about. Your whole story is contradicted by the quotes you have included from the judge.

Top marks for an attempt at sensationalist journalism, I am sure that you will have grabbed the attention of a few people, who are now scared to walk the visual streets of the internet after night in case for nasty hooligans wanting to cause trouble.

How pathetic.

Hooligans? How DARE you call my fellow fans, who have done NOTHING WRONG, hooligans?! Get your facts right before you spout such rubbish again. Lazy journalism, you should be ashamed of yourself!!!

Refer to points 18, 19 and 20 in the document.

Is that your response ?

Well I have looked at those points and in none of them does the Judge make any inference that the posters are thugs or hooligans.

Get your facts straight. The very notion that your have labelled these posters as Hooligans, when absolutely NOTHING has been proven and therefore damaging their reputation leaves you wide open to legal action for defamation.

Consider that.

I have referred your comments to one of the posters in question. He will be seeking legal advice with regards to your allegation that he is a hooligan.

He takes his son to matches, sits in the family stand and has never once been so much as spoken ot by a steward , let alone a police officer.

Yet you have published that he is a football hooligan.

Jane seriously!

I could give links to hundreds of different reports from worldwide media on this!

So you could look at how it should have being reported.

The hooligan issue is wrong and really should be withdrawn with an apology forthcoming.

Those people face losing homes and family's being broken because of,... well you have seen what was put,

They dont deserve the HOOLIGAN label!

How can you justify the hooligan bit?

Thats a well constructed opening sentence by the way.

Don't give up the day job.

"A British judge has ordered a website to reveal the names of three abusive football hooligans that who posted nasty messages on the message boards "

That's a well constructed first sentence , by the way.

Don't give up the day job.

With the greatest of respect, these people are just ordinary fans. The judge mentioned nothing about hooliganism. They are not guilty of violence, obscenity or disorder. They are just genuine Wednesdayites, upset with the current state of affairs at the club.

That a club with a £27m debt is busy suing its own long suffering fans is disgraceful.

As a footnote to this, some of the very board members who are suing for suggesting misleading or untrustworthy behaviour promised the following:

(1) Resignation if ex-manager Chris Turner was sacked.
(He was fired several years ago. The individual who made the promise remains on the board)

(2) That we would be "throwing money" at a promotion push this season.

So far, the net result of our transfer activity has amounted to a trousering of money by the club. In itself, not a bad thing given the financial situation, but another broken promise, and another apparently misleading statement.

(3) The previous would-be investor, Mr P. Gregg was turned off the prospect because he was unable to achieve control of the club. Mr Allen cited the 10% shareholding of Wednesdayite as being a particular problem.

These shares have now been made available, along with a large number of others pledged for sale through the Shareholders Association Initiative. Has Mr Gregg come back to the table? We are still waiting.

In no way are any of the 4 fans in question hooligans. One is a 70 year old lady. Another has expended a great deal of time and money into the club, and has been involved in fundraising work and other community ventures.

There seems to be a conspiracy of ignorance amongst the collective press regarding this story, and the misreporting of it. At the heart of it is a truly tragic scenario where several individuals and their families stand to lose everything at the hands of the club they have followed, and given to immeasurably in terms of time, finance and emotion.

Please, re-read the court decision, and decide if there is any mention, or even insinuation of hooliganism.

It is great that you are giving column space to this case, but please, don't let sensationalism and the need for a catchy headline cloud the facts.

WO

I realise point (3) is not a promise, but with no edit facility it's there now. It is, however another example of an unexplained mystery which could easily be put to bed by a bit more dialogue. However, while nobody talks, speculation grows...

Jane,

Please read points 18,19, and 20 again and let us all know where hooliganism is mentioned or even vaguely hinted at (clue it isn't!).

The very least you need to do is retract that reference, to refer to a football fan as a hooligan is a serious allegation and in the current climate could land you in court for making defamatory comments about these people.

When a newspaper makes comments about a celebrity and is consequently sued, do we use the word hooligan? No we don't your use of that word in particular in my opinion shows your lack of understanding of both football fans and this case.

A little bit of research on the background to these comments, the current situation at Sheffield Wednesday and the fact that it is now public knowledge that one of the posters involved is a 70 year old lady would have prevented many of these critical comments.

Still if the aim was to get more subscribers, its worked hasn't it?

I'll take this point by point if I may:

"A British judge has ordered a website to reveal the names of three abusive football fans who posted nasty messages on the message boards"

1) It's FOUR fans details that has to be given
2) How have you decided that they were abusive ?



"the three Sheffield Wednesday fans were more than a little unhappy with the powers that be in the club and used the site, owlstalk.co.uk, to vent, assuming that under the cloak of anonymity, they could say what they liked"

How have you come to the conclusion that this is what they assumed ?

Where's your evidence that the Owlstalk members believed this to be the case ?



"The football club was originally demanding the disclosure of eleven names"

WRONG - it was THIRTEEN but hey - don't let facts get in the way of your well researched article (despite the fact that all the facts are well documented and more accurately reported just about everywhere else on the internet)


"The judge ordered that only three of the fans’ messages might "reasonably be understood to allege greed, selfishness, untrustworthiness and dishonest behaviour", should be revealed to the clubs bigwigs"


WRONG - it was FOUR



"Editors Note: This news item provoked some controversy by referring to the posters of the libelous messages as "hooligans". Applying this label, given its connotations within the footballing world, was wrong of us, and we wish to apologise."


I trust that you have seen the posts in question and had them tried in a court of law in order to reach your conclusion that the posts were libelous ?