Club attacked

By Tania Martin
SHERBROOKE Soccer Club members are appealing to vandals to stop wrecking their soccer ground in Menzies Creek after several goal posts were damaged recently.
The damage comes after the club had a working bee to fix up the grounds for the start of the season next week.
Club committee member Simon Crosbie said the club regularly deals with vandalism of the ground and the club rooms and that it was very frustrating.
Mr Crosbie said the club had already experienced two break-ins this year and that last year there were four or five incidents.
He said the goal posts were tipped up on their ends and some of the posts which are made from steal were broken.
Club secretary David Ceeney said this latest damage comes after the club rooms were broken into at the end of last season and the fridge and cupboards were destroyed.
“Where we are situated there is no real visibility and people just come along, smash windows and do what they want and no one can really see what they are doing and we don’t really know what the answer is to stop it from happening,” he said.
Mr Crosbie said it would have taken a big group to cause the damage.
“I don’t think this was done by kids as the goal posts are very heavy,” he said.
Mr Crosbie said the club was fed-up with the amount of work that needed to be done as a result of vandalism.
“This is just an act of anti-social behaviour and if they get caught by police they will go down for criminal damage,” he said.
Player Cordelia said what the vandals had done to the playing field ‘sucks’ and that it mad her sad to see the damage.
Mr Crosbie said it was very disappointing especially as it affects the children who haven’t done anything wrong and just want to be able to play soccer.
“I wish they could see the effect it has on the children and then they might think twice about their actions,” he said.
Mr Crosbie said goal posts cost $3000 a pair and that several had metal parts broken off them and he was unsure if they could be repaired.
However, he said it was not so much the cost of repairing the grounds but the continual drain on the volunteers who are parents and coaches for the club.
“It means we have to get the parents back in, some who are coaches, and take them away from the children to fix the damage,” he said.
Mr Crosbie said the whole incident has taken the focus off the season and the children and is very disruptive.
Shire of Yarra Ranges Lyster Ward councillor Samantha Dunn said she finds such acts of vandalism mindless.
Cr Dunn said it makes her despair when this sort of thing happens after community groups such as the soccer club put hard work into maintaining their grounds.
“I can hardly blame the club for being fed-up when they have to continually deal with this sort of issue. It is diverting them from what their passion is – soccer,” she said.
Cr Dunn said she sometimes wonders what is going through the perpetrators’ minds and would like to investigate what can be done to change this sort of behaviour.