Mindless vandals have caused thousands of pounds worth of damage to a cricket club.
Unsworth Cricket Club has been hit by a spate of vandalism in recent months.
Now the club, on Pole Lane, has been forced to set up a crowdfunder to help pay for the repairs.
Vandals have been breaking into the club during the night on an almost weekly basis and have ripped down netting, torn down fences, and destroyed guttering.
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They have also broken shutters and set off alarms in the club’s premises, forcing them to pay for emergency call outs from their security company.
Ian Murphy, a director at Unsworth Cricket Club, says the club is ‘haemorrhaging money’ to pay for repairs and estimates that the damage could cost them in excess of £10,000.
He said: “Last week we had a security patrol and the police came down, they called it anti-social behaviour.
“They found vodka bottles and things like that.
“[the vandals] are just systematically finding newer stuff to destroy.
“As a club, we’re rebuilding it fairly well, but we don’t have the money to keep up.”
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In an appeal on it's GoFundMe page, the club said: "This winter, Unsworth Cricket Club has been targeted by mindless vandalism, destroying our cricket nets and other areas of the club.
"This has left the clubs facilities in disrepair and unusable. The club are asking to help us fund the repair of these facilities."
Ian says the club is still open for functions and events but it won’t have practice facilities open for next year, after damage has rendered it ‘unusable.’
“It’s just been sustained,” he added, “every weekend we get either a report from our security guard, or we’ll turn up and they’ll be something destroyed or something moved around.”
The club’s GoFundMe is asking residents to donate what they can to help repair its facilities. You can donate to it here. (www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/unsworth-cricketclub?)
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