Vandals strike again at fundraising football club

Further damage was done to Loughborough FC's grounds on Friday morning (26th March).

The club are in the process of trying to raise £4,000 to repair their stands and facilities, which have been vandalised over lockdown. 

In a Facebook post, the club said it was the ninth time they had been attacked in as many months.

"This time they left all the cans of alcohol and wine, whisky and other spirits bottles all over the pitch. This includes lots of silver canisters and McDonalds food paper, they have also thrown all the rubbish all over the ground and chucked all the chairs on the floors in the cabins.

"The club is on its knees with the amount of damage there has been since the Covid-19 lockdown.

"The club is so desperate for strong metal fence panels, which will stop these youths coming into our grounds and damaging the club cabins.

"Without these fences the club will still get vandalised every time these youths decide to feel like coming to our ground."

John Belton is club secretary and has been involved with the team for over twenty-five years.

He told Fosse107 that first seeing the damage over lockdown made him want to give up. 

"To see it then smashed to pieces, with all broken glass everywhere, I thought time to call it a day.

"But the younger members [of the club], they weren't having it."

The long period of inactivity during the last 12 months has left the ground unguarded for some time, allowing vandals and locals to use it as a place to drink as well as leaving a lot of property up for grabs. A number of items including footballs have been stolen.

After launching ten days ago they are now over half way to their target of £4000, with a number of other clubs having helped out.

John said, "The competition on the pitch gets intense, but when one of us is down they all rally round. 

"That's what's kept me going."