Thieves steal equipment from Abercarn football club (From South Wales Argus)

Thieves steal equipment from Abercarn football club

10:18am Monday 22nd October 2012 in News

SURVEYING THE DAMAGE: left to right Ross Dight, the first team captain, Rory Davies, the club secretary, and Andy Brown, the U-18s manager

THIEVES stole almost £2,000 worth of equipment, including a £900 ride-on lawn mower which they use to cut their pitch, from a Sunday league football team.

Abercarn FC discovered the thefts from their metal lock-up shed close next to their home pitch at Cwmcarn High School at around midday on Tuesday last week.

The Gwent County First Division outfit had 20 litres of petrol stolen as well as a strimmer and a bright green push-along petrol lawnmower.

But the most expensive item was the club’s red Toro ride-on mower, which they had saved up for over five seasons and had only bought three months ago.

Rory Davies, 31, who has played for the club for 14 seasons, said the thefts were hugely frustrating.

“We’re absolutely gutted,”

Mr Davies said. “We run the club on a season by season basis so we just don’t have that kind of money to replace the mower. We saved up for it for about five seasons so to have it nicked almost straight away is very frustrating.

“The council don’t cut our pitch because the school have decided to use a private contractor to look after their grounds so now we are going to have to pay around £100 a time to get it cut.”

The club, who have more than 100 members including a veterans team and U11s and U9s squads, said the thieves looked to have hot-wired the mower and driven it off.

“We can’t afford to buy another one, so I guess we’ll have to start saving up again, it’s a massive blow,”

said Mr Davies.