Chris Hoy, British track national championships 2011, day four
British track sprint star Sir Chris Hoy has been on the receiving end of some surprisingly vicious criticism of his refereeing of the Tottenham Hotspur versus Stoke Premier League match this weekend.
Except, of course, he wasn't refereeing the match. That would be the similarly named Chris Foy.
Sir Chris has been sent messages of abuse from Tottenham fans via microblogging site Twitter. Fans are aggrieved at their club's perceived lack of support from the ref during Sunday's 2-1 defeat at the hands of Stoke.
Sir Chris attempted to rectify the fumbled-fingered fans' error with a Tweet of his own on Sunday night: "Just for the record 1) I don't need glasses and 2) I do not lead a double life as an English premiere league ref. That's Chris Foy".
Half a day later, Sir Chris was still receiving messages of abuse. "Still getting some rather amusing grief from Spurs fans! On the plus side I've learned some new 4 letter words today," said the Scottish triple 2008 Olympic Games gold medallist.
Twitter hashtag '#FoyNotHoy' became a trending Twitter topic on Monday afternoon after the case of mistaken identity was picked up by fans of the cyclist.
Related links
Sir Chris Hoy: Rider Profile
External link
Sir Chris Hoy on Twitter
Reader comments
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Katie
December 12 15:57
Possibly shows you the mentality of the average football fan.
Mark Jones
December 12 16:47
The dim majority in the UK think (or at least used to think) that pro cycling was just about the Tour de France, so it makes perfect sense that trackie Sir Chris would have time to be refereeing a Premiership football match given that he doesn't have to ride his bike again until the Olympics.
Will Hirst
December 13 06:35
This reminds me about when pediatricians are mistaken for being pedophiles. Albert Einstein was right. Human stupidity is infinite.
adam
December 13 11:57
More to his credit that he saw the funny side and didn't start law suits for damages to his character...