A Scottish junior football team have been left gutted after their pitch was set on fire by heartless vandals, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.
Dunipace Football Club, an East of Scotland First Division side, spent eight years fundraising for the astroturf pitch - which they say makes this blaze even more gut wrenching. The club have now appealed for information after the pitch at Westfield Park was set ablaze.
It will set the club back an estimated six figures in damages. However, the Scottish football community has already started to rally round the side, which has been left to count the cost of costly actions from thoughtless vandals.
Dunipace initially cancelled its next home match against Preston Athletic before the club was offered the use of Stenhousemuir's ground, Ochilview Park.
Anne McVicar, one of the club volunteers, opened the pitch up at 7.40am for the youth teams and discovered the pitch "smouldering", club secretary Stephen Tait told the Record. The fire service were then called out.
"We haven't heard anything from police yet, as we only discovered it around 7.40am this morning," said Stephen.
"We've never had that kind of vandalism at the club before. There's been quite a few issues recently within Denny itself. I heard last night there were other areas of vandalism.
"It's an AstroTurf surface and they've set fire to it - it's basically just melted away, and it's down to the rubber now. I would say around 25% of the pitch has been damaged in the middle area.
"We'll need to speak to insurers, but whether it's a case of replacing the whole pitch I don't know. From our point of view, we aren't really keen on having brand new turf in the damaged section then turf that's had five years of wear next to it.
"The main hassle is displacing our youth teams, our amateur team, our senior team and our ladies section. That's the big disappointment for us."
Stephen said the effort to modernise the park and fundraise to have the surface replace had taken around eight years, which made the wilful fire-raising difficult to accept.
"We went from having a group of youth teams, mostly young boys, to having our ladies section, girls section. We have Gables FC which is a team for men over 35 with mental health issues.
"So it's a good facility which helps a lot of people. Having seen the comments today on Facebook, there seems to be a huge disappointment among the local community."
Stephen also praised other clubs who reached out to try and help in their time of need, saying: "Stenhousemuir have kindly offered to host our home tie, so we are there this afternoon, and I believe Falkirk also offered their ground.
"Stenhousemuir contacted us, and have also offered us some AstroTurf that they have from their previous pitch. We don't know if it will be feasible to use it but we certainly appreciate the gesture.
"And we have had messages from other clubs in our league, which is appreciated."
A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We received a report of a fire at a premises on Town House Street, Denny, around 8am on Saturday, May 20, 2023.
“The fire was extinguished by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and there were no reports of any injuries. The fire is being treated as wilful and enquiries are ongoing.”
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