Owlstalk, the most popular website and forum for Sheffield Wednesday fans, was yesterday forced to hand over the details to identify four of it's users by a Judge.
The club had gone to court to force the site to hand over details of 13 of the users who had posted messages on the forum however the Judge threw out nine of the cases, announcing in his judgement: "It seems to me that some of the postings which concern the claimants border on the trivial."
The failed cases have seen the club rack up £9,000 in legal costs. Judge Richard Parkes QC has ordered Owlstalk owner Neil Hargreaves to hand over the e-mail addresses of three users: 'halfpint', 'ian' and 'vaughan', adding that their postings "may reasonably be understood to allege greed, selfishness, untrustworthiness and dishonest behaviour on the part of the claimants."
Several of the users cleared have spoken of their relief at the judgement, claiming that the club's actions would have sent them to bankruptcy.