Glass on pitch is a danger to all who use facilities

A STRABANE GAA club has hit out at ‘anti community behaviour’ as youths have been drinking around the grounds and left smashed glass on the pitch.

In the most recent incident at Páirc Mhíc Sioghair in the Ballycolman, youths smashed bottles and left glass on the playing pitch.

The club had been a the target of vandalism in October when a group of young people smashed bottles on the playing surfaces, damaged the area surrounding the clubhouse and broke electricity ports.

The Sigersons GAA committee said this type behaviour is unacceptable. They explained volunteers had to remove the smashed glass from the pitch.

A spokesperson for the club said, “We have highlighted previous incidents over the last number of months, this time we have groups of youths drinking in the dugouts and they are then smashing their bottles. The smashed glass is bad enough in the dugouts but members of our grounds committee are now having to remove glass from the playing surface.

“This is totally unacceptable. Hundreds of volunteers over the past 25 years have put thousands of hours into developing Páirc Mhíc Sioghair to the standard it is today, we have spent over £2 million on our grounds for the people of Strabane to play Gaelic Games not for young people to recklessly abuse our facilities. Glass on the playing surface presents a massive danger to all who train and play on our pitches. We would encourage these young people to come to Sigersons when training resumes and take part in the activities we offer instead of causing havoc and vandalising a community facility,” said the spokesperson.

“Unfortunately we have to lock our gates at the weekends to prevent this activity, we know this will disappoint many people who use our facilities to exercise, we hope this is a short term measure,” the club spokesperson explained.

“We would ask all parents to make their children aware of the dangers associated with this type of vandalism and to remind them what Strabane Sigersons offers to the local community. We thank the 99.9 per-cent of people who use our facilities and respect them.”