Norwich City Call In Police After 17-Year Old Boy Publishes Photos Of New Kit Online

Chris Wright

19th, April 2012

10 Comments

By Chris Wright

Norwich City saw fit to call in the police – the actual bloody police – after a 17-year old fan leaked photos of the club’s new kit online on Tuesday night, the day before it was due to be officially unveiled.

Norfolk Police were called in after IT student Chris Brown slapped a few images of the Norwich 2012/13 kit (here’s a hint: it’s yellow) on his Twitter account after lifting them from a corner of the club’s official website that was still under construction. It’s worth noting that he did not hack the site, just ‘right clicked> saved as-ed’ a few photos from a page that was being updated.

Brown apparently received a stern phone call from on Wednesday afternoon, asking him how he’d managed to obtain the photos and where exactly he had redistributed them.

During an interview with the BBC, Chris – a Norwich City season-ticket holder –  apologised for his actions:

“I’m sorry for any offence I might have caused to the club, but I would never do anything malicious or spiteful because I do have an interest and love the football club.”

“[I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong] at first, but maybe when I was getting retweets and mentions from people on Twitter. That’s when I sort of thought ‘should I really have done this?’, and I do regret it.”

Chris’ mother Trish Brown said:

“I feel Norwich could have handled it better. I feel they could have spoken to Chris and myself… and just discussed why he’d done it, asked him a few more questions, before involving the police.”

“He knows he’s probably done wrong by taking it a bit further, but that was just excitement to show other people what he had done.”

The BBC then garnered the official line from Norwich’s chief executive David McNally:

“We are the guardians of the football club whilst we’re here and so we will protect our property – and our property in the digital age involves our intellectual property, so we won’t allow anybody to come in and take it from us.”

Norfolk Police are now ‘making inquiries into a reported electronic security breach’ and have asked young Chris to assist in their report.

Heavy. Handed.

Remember peons: The Property Guardians are always watching you.

Posted in FAIL, Kits & fashion, Norwich City

Share this article: Email

10 Comments

  1. SL says:

    Whoever called in police should be done for wasting police time.

  2. Loosen my Britches says:

    Wow. Poor kid.

    On another note, Stephen Fry supports Norwich? Screw Hamburg, I love Norwich now.

  3. Ricky says:

    Norwich published them online first, they owe this young lad an apology.

  4. Al says:

    honestly, who cares about seeing this, I could have drawn you a picture of it months ago, it will be yellow, with green, and aviva on the front, and green shorts, and yellow socks!Ridiculous, as if the police in Norfolk don’t have better things to be spending their time on, like stopping brothers and sisters going lusting after each other (thats a joke by the way, just toc larify so I don’t get put away like the muamba texter)

  5. Milkchew says:

    The guy above: Are you sure your not talking about Brazi…..oh wait.

  6. David Allison says:

    “…so we won’t allow anybody to come in and take it from us.”

    Leaving confidential pics on public dev site = allowing anybody to come in and take it from you.

    *smacks forehead*

  7. Steven says:

    The web developer(s) is the guy(s) that actually “leaked” the image. This kid was an opportunist at worst.

  8. usrick says:

    An excellent example of how to make the Premier League, play well, finish well above expectations and still manage to make your club look come off like idiots.

  9. TheMoron says:

    Not only is that a fuck stupid waste of police time, but that fuck stupid – excruciatingly embarrasing – video was a waste of my time.

    Delia Smith, I hate thee.

  10. big mean bunny says:

    “We are the guardians of the football club whilst we’re here and so we will protect our property – and our property in the digital age involves our intellectual property, so we won’t allow anybody to come in and take it from us.”

    sounds to me like they need to check up on digital law, if he saved them as mentioned they don’t have a leg to stand on and he should complain about being falsely accused when he has used their website in a lawful way. Not his fault you could get to that area and save the images.

Leave a Reply to Loosen my Britches