Community sports pitches in Edinburgh ruined by 'mindless' vandals over Christmas break

Inch Park Community Sports Club took to social media this morning to share their devastation that three of their pitches are now unusable after people drove cars onto them and ruined the grass doing ‘donuts’.

Sports pitches that have been ruined at the Inch Park Community Sports Club

The post on Facebook featuring pictures of the damaged pitches has been shared over 300 times, and says that everyone at the club is “absolutely devastated” by what has happened.

The post reads: “Our Rugby, Football and Cricket pitches have all been seriously damaged over the Christmas break by someone doing donuts across the pitches in their car.

“It’s not good enough that covid is stopping our kids playing sports and exercising but we have mindless act of destruction like this taking place.”

Joe Sneddon, chairman of the club, told the Evening News this morning that it will cost between £3,000 and £4,000 to restore the three pitches to a usable condition.

If they don’t take action now, they won’t be able to use them at all for the rest of the season.

Mr Sneddon said: “It's pretty devastating in terms of impact. We've already been hit pretty hard with coronavirus and now this.

“As a charity we rely on our revenue streams, we have a bar and function hall as well as our club sporting events but obviously these have all stopped so we’ve been pretty much crippled.

A picture of one of the Inch Park Community Sports Club pitches that has been ruined

"We’ve managed to get by and secure some funding to get us through this period but it looks like we’re potentially going to be locked down again so it’s a really difficult time.

“We’re almost at breaking point to be honest.”

Mr Sneddon said that they are hoping they can drive down the cost of the repairs as much as possible just to ensure that the pitches are playable, they can’t afford to fully renovate them.

If you would like to donate to the club you can do so here.

One of the three pitches at the Inch Park Community Sports Club that was ruined

He hopes that by sharing the incident on social media the people who are responsible for the “mindless vandalism” will see the damage they have caused to the local community and think twice before doing anything like it again.

Edinburgh Councillor Mark Brown shared his fury at the news by posting the images of the damaged pitches on his Twitter saying that it was “Idiotic behaviour” that would cost the Edinburgh sporting charity “£££” to repair.

Mr Sneddon added that the value the club brings to the community, especially during these difficult times, is immeasurable which makes someone vandalising the property even more upsetting.

He said: “Sports play a massive part in people's lives and throughout the pandemic we've seen the benefits that it has for people suffering through isolation, and various other things.

“When the restrictions were lifted, getting back to sports made such a huge difference to the kids and the parents.

"And sometimes you know, it’s all people have, watching their children play or seeing a game on a weekly basis."

Mr Sneddon added: “Some people see it as just sports, but the positive impact it can have in terms of giving people a break and taking their minds off everything else going on is so important.

"So it’s vital that we keep going as a community to push through this trying time.”

A message from the Editor:Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.