Vandals’ damage to Fareham Town Football Club is ‘the final straw’ says treasurer ahead of security camera installation

Members of the club team found on Wednesday morning that the fence had been broken, and bottles and rubbish had been left behind by people who had broken in overnight.

This most recent vandalism follows several other incidents at the community football club, which has experienced a spate of break-ins this year.

One such incident left the club hundreds of pounds out of pocket after its new seating was destroyed.

Tony White, who has been treasurer at the club for about a year, believes that a group of people entered the site to throw a party and then sleep outside.

He said: ‘There’s been drinking, people partying and causing damage, people have been on the roof as well. It’s an ongoing problem.’

A groundsman, who had locked up the club at 9pm on Tuesday, discovered the broken fence when opening the site at 7am on Wednesday. Broken bottles were later found by the club’s vice chairman.

Tony has been involved with the club for a long time, first watching a game in 1967.

He says that the community football club has now had to invest in security cameras in the hopes of deterring future break-ins.

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This is disappointing for Fareham Town as money spent on the surveillance cannot be used in supporting the club’s teams. Many of the team members are volunteers and contribute their time for free.

Tony said: ‘Security cameras are planned for next week - we’ve had to bite the bullet as it’s an ongoing saga.

‘It’s annoying, we try to raise money to keep the community club going and the price of the cameras takes a big chunk out of our finances but hopefully it’s going to deter people.

‘Hopefully it will stop when we’ve got our cameras installed.’

The cameras will provide 24-hour surveillance for the club.

Tony added: ‘We want people to know that if you’re doing it, you’re going to get caught as the new security cameras will be going up from next week.

‘This is the final straw.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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