Wikipedia prankster gets made up "facts" published in the Mirror

A b3ta prankster included the "facts" in the wikipedia article about AC Omonia that;

A small but loyal group of fans are lovingly called "The Zany Ones" - they like to wear hats made from discarded shoes and have a song about a little potato. They are known to keep their season tickets in the oven for safekeeping.

- he was surprised to see these facts repeated in The Mirror: ".....whose fans are known as the 'Zany Ones' and wear hats made from shoes." so he decided to email them about the prank to point out their lazy research. Still this ended up in print and in another article the next day: "Omonia made City pay for their wastefulness when they opened the scoring four minutes after the break to send their fans - nicknamed the Zany Ones - completely wild.". Tsssk!
The email sent to the journalist:

Dear David (and could the mirrornews email please be forwarded to the sport/football editor),

Thank you for your article in today's Mirror (18th September 2008) about Omonia Nicosia. The bit I enjoyed most was the following paragraph -

"Despite City's raised profile, they must make do with the UEFA Cup this season and Hughes will not tolerate any slip-ups against the Cypriot side, whose fans are known as the 'Zany Ones' and wear hats made from shoes.".

Why? Well, shortly after the draw was made, a friend and I made a few alterations to the Wikipedia page for Omonia. The "Zany Ones", "hats made from discarded shoes" and the "song about a little potato" are, as you may have discovered in Nicosia, completely fabricated.

The clues were there in the rest of the article.

They have a new sponsor - Natasha Kaplinsky - and their former players include Jean Claude Van Damme and Richard Clayderman. My favourite is in the Board of Directors section...
# Governor of Football: Nikos Charalambous
# Governor of Basketball: Petros Souppouris
# Governor of Volleyball: Photos Ioannou
# Governor of Hitlersball: Albert Hall

I hope you take this in the spirit it was meant, and hope this reminds you not to trust everything you read on Wikipedia.

Any donations to our Friday beer fund would be most welcome. Perhaps your editor would like to contribute your fee for the article, as you evidently didn't do any fact checking.

Thank you,