WAGGA Hockey has been left fuming after a senseless act of vandalism resulted in significant damage to their newly-resurfaced field at their Jubilee Park base on Sunday night.
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Club officials are hopeful the culprits can be identified from CCTV footage after glue used to seal the new surface, which is yet to even be used, was thrown across three rolls of turf, which cost around $6000 apiece.
They then proceeded to spread glue on a bottle-filling station which also has to be painstakingly removed to avoid permanent damage, and break into the club fridge and trashed their centre dugout by throwing eggs and other food.
Wagga Hockey president Ken Larkin said the needless destruction of property had angered members who have spent the last few years raising around $235,000 to resurface one of their fields, which a grant from council matching that amount.
"This particular glue can cause permanent damage if not removed in 72 hours. If we can't do that the whole rolls need to replace and they're about $6000 each, but the technicians are very confident they can remove it," Larkin said.
"They went over to one of our bottle feeding stations looking to clean their hands and put glue all over it, now it has to be systematically cleaned very carefully as you can't just use solvents on it.
"They then got into the contractor's fridge and threw eggs and other food everywhere, and left a mess on the ground.
"They didn't take anything, it was just malicious damage. It (surface) is recoverable, which is great from our perspective, and council are currently going through the CCTV to see if they can identify anyone."
Larkin said it "didn't make sense" that a pointless act of vandalism could potentially sabotage years of fundraising.
"It's almost finished, it's a project we've been with the support of council," he said.
"Not only are we concerned about this stuff they are too. I can't figure out whey they'd grab the glue and throw it randomly across the field, it doesn't make sense.
"Our members have raised money from canteen profits, members levies and other fundraisers to replace this pitch.
"You can understand they're angry because we understand the investment in this, but these people simply don't care about other people's property.
"It would have taken us about seven years (to raise the money), and we'll do similar for the second field when it needs to be replaced.
"Our members work very hard to do it, and to do this to a brand new field that hasn't even been played on yet certainly doesn't go down very well."
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