Paranoid Norwich City Call Police on 17 Year-old

It's coming to that time of the season when the new, money-making football strips are released.  This was no different with Norwich City, whose new kit was released yesterday, apart from the day early leak thanks to a 17 year-old IT student.

Chris Brown, a Norwich season-ticket holder, found an under-construction webpage featuring the new kit on Tuesday and, saving the images from the public website, posted them on Twitter.  The football club, however, proceeded to inform Norfolk Police of the 'theft' and caused a criminal investigation into the matter.

The new kit, as unveiled on canaries.com.

The club said that it would 'protect its property at all costs' and this is what provoked the call to the police.  But for this young man, who wanted to share with the world his excitement at the new strip of his favourite football team, a stern call from the police was not really what he wanted.  He has given an apology to the club and is assisting Norfolk Police with their investigation into 'a reported electronic security breach'.

For me, this is all a bit over the top.  Fair enough, Norwich City didn't want their strip to be leaked early but they could have handled this situation much better.  Simply go to the lad first and explain the problem.  Sorted.  In my opinion, it was the fault of the club in the first place for updating such an important webpage in public; Chris didn't hack into the server or do anything illegal, he merely saved a publicly available image and shared it with his friends.

Covering up a mistake with a heavy handed gesture like this has stamped the club's authority for sure but it just doesn't fit in with the fan-friendly image they have elsewhere...