Tag Archive for: Vandalism

Cricket club raises £10k after pitch vandalism

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Cricket club raises £10k after pitch vandalism: A village cricket club whose pitch was destroyed by vandals who poured weedkiller over it has raised £10,000 to cover the cost of repairs.

Read the full article from ITV here

Cricket club raises £10k after pitch vandalism

Cricket club raises £10k after pitch vandalism

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Club receives donations after vandalism

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Club receives donations after vandalism: A thriving Suffolk football club has received two kind-hearted gestures after vandals damaged two pitches and forced youth games to be postponed.

Volunteers at Stowupland Falcons FC were dismayed after quad bike vandals left tyre tracks on the field overnight on Saturday, November 2, causing the cancellation of Sunday youth fixtures.

Club receives donations after vandalism

But after hearing of the club’s plight in this newspaper, Malcolm Birt, from Ipswich, came forward to donate a roller to the club to help with repairs as well as a cheque for £50.

The club also received a £100 donation towards pitch repairs from neighbouring club Mendlesham FC.

In an email, Mendlesham chairman Tim Mack said he was “appalled” by the vandalism.

He said: “It is difficult enough keeping a football club funded and volunteer rich without having to deal with such mindless vandalism.”

Pete Mayhew, Stowupland Falcons chairman, said: “It was a really nice thing for Malcolm to do.

“It came out of the blue and he phoned up and said he wanted to help.

“He said he’d been involved with local football in his younger days and that the roller was more use to us than it was to him.

“He also donated £50 towards repairs which was really kind.”

Mr Mayhew added that the donation from Mendlesham FC showed that grass roots football “had come together”.

“There can be a little bit of rivalry between clubs,” he said. “But it’s nice to know that when it comes to the crunch, they wanted to help out a fellow football club.

“Ultimately, we are all trying to do the same thing and bring football to the people.

“Everyone talks about money in football, but let me tell you, there isn’t much at the grass roots level.

“£100 is a lot of money to Mendlesham and it’s such a kind thing for them to do.

“I think it shows that people do come together.”

Mr Mayhew said that due to the extensive rain in the past week, the club has so far been unable to work on the pitches.

“The games were called off due to the weather this weekend and so we haven’t been able to roll it yet.

“We are hoping to get on there at some stage on Sunday and get them ready for next weekend,” he added.

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Games cancelled after pitch vandalism

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Games cancelled after pitch vandalism: Angry club officials have spoken of their frustration as a reckless driver has damaged two of their football pitches.

Southwell City Football Club has had to cancel their 7-a-side matches for the foreseeable future as their pitch has been damaged by a irresponsible driver, or drivers, racing and performing doughnuts on the club’s Church Street pitches.

Chairman of the club John Cunningham said: “This was a bit of a shock to say the least, we’re a community club with 300 local players, so why someone would do this is beyond us.

“It’s not just the players, it’s the families who are involved with us as well, most people in the town are involved with the club or know someone who is.”

As a result of the damage, the club is relying on their opponents having pitches available so that games can be played away from home if possible. If not, the games will have to be cancelled altogether.

Mr Cunningham said: “It’s too early to say how much it’s going to cost to repair the pitch, but it’s the inconvenience that’s the biggest problem for us.”

Nottinghamshire Police have confirmed that a vehicle was driven across two football pitches belonging to Southwell City F.C, damaging the surface, and the incident is believed to have happened at a time between late last night and early this morning.

If you have any information about the incident, contact Nottinghamshire Police on 101, quoting incident number 167 of October 18.

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Volunteers ‘Disheartened’ After Pitch Vandalism

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Volunteers ‘Disheartened’ After Pitch Vandalism: Volunteers at an amateur football club have been left “disheartened” after vandals rode across their pitch on off-road motorcycles.

After going to check the pitch at Breightmet Wanderers’ Dolan Park on Sunday morning, a member of the club spotted long tyre trails across the turf.

The pitches, off Newby Road, have been left open to the public since the team took ownership of them around two years ago but club secretary Andy Fearnley said they might have to be closed off following the “frustrating” vandalism.

He said: “It’s something I don’t want to do because it’s there for the community to use but it’s just a shame when something like this happens. We’re looking at closing it to the public if we have to.”

The pitch is used by nine teams, with age groups from under 8s to 17s playing games at Dolan Park. It is kept in shape by a team of volunteers from the club.

Mr Fearnley explained that, while the damage to the pitch was not extensive, it has caused concern.

He said: “On Saturday we had three sets of teams playing there, the under 8s, 9s and 10s, so if this had happened a day before then all of the games could’ve been cancelled.

” It’s not a major amount to fix depending on the weather but it’s all voluntary so when you turn up and see this it’s awful.”

He added: “There’s a difficult balance between providing a maintained pitch for our players and appreciating the need for a local community outside area but this makes me want to put barriers up.”

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Match Off After Pitch Vandalism

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Match Off After Pitch Vandalism: Ongoing damage at Putaruru’s Totara Park is angering the community and sparking fears public access could be restricted.

In the latest incident a vehicle damaged the football pitch so badly that the Rangers team had to cancel its final game of the season.

Manager Derek Roberts, who has been with the club since the 1960’s, said although not the first time vehicles have damaged the grounds, it was the worst he had seen.

South Waikato District Council parks and reserves manager Phil Parker said the damage was “frustrating”.

“Staff and contractors find this behaviour equally annoying as park users,” he said.

“Our staff and contractors work hard to maintain our parks, reserves and sports grounds for our community and to see them treated with such disrespect is very frustrating.”

Parker said prior to the latest incident the council’s contractor was due to begin the bi-annual turf renovation programme.

“This will continue, however, obviously, this part of the grounds will now require some additional work and effort,” he said.

He said the ongoing damage was costing ratepayers.

“Sadly this is not an isolated incident,” he said.

“There is a cost to ratepayers to repair this kind of damage which is unfortunate, but the greatest cost in this instance is that the Putaruru Rangers had to forfeit their last game of the season. That’s really disappointing.”

Parker said the council was disappointed that the actions of a few people were ruining things for the majority.

“Those responsible for this vandalism should be held to account. Unfortunately without eyewitnesses that is close to impossible,” he said.

“We would encourage anyone who knows anything to contact the council or the police.”

Senior Sergeant Jason Henderson said he wasn’t aware of any reports being made to police.

“We haven’t received any report as yet. That is quite often the thing, if we don’t know about it we can’t actually do anything about it,” he said.

“More often than not we find people don’t want to bug the police because we are already busy and all the rest of it but if there is a trend and it is annoying people then we need to know so we can look into it.”

Henderson said such incidents could lead to public access being restricted to such facilities.

“These people will end up ruining it for everyone,” he said.

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