Birkenhead youth football team hit by arson attack

Jun 24 2009 by Kevin Core, Birkenhead News

Birkenhead youth football team hit by arson attack

A JUNIOR football club which hoped to raise £2,000 will be hit by a £2,400 bill after vandals torched portable toilets.

Glenavon FC has hired the conveniences from Search Plant Hire but did not realise they were responsible for insurance.

The club, which has 250 players aged under six to 16, hosted a fund-raising tournament of 680 young footballers at Solly Playing Fields in Prenton at the weekend.

Police were called to the site at 10.30pm to find the toilets destroyed and £5,000 worth of sports equipment in a nearby container left useless by heat and smoke damage.

Bill Price, 59, of Prenton, has been chairman at the club since it was founded 17 years ago, and says the bill could mean an uncertain future for the club.

He said: “We didn’t check and assumed that the hire of these things would include a payment for their insurance. We had spent over £5,000 on the equipment in the container, goals, nets, training equipment – we even lost £280 Respect banners that we had for a Football Foundation campaign.

“The people who have done this are thugs, we don’t have this sort of money so everything is in doubt at the moment.”

Merseyside Police confirmed they were investigating

Anyone with information should call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.