Joyriders ripping up a football pitch is very disheartening for volunteers

IT really is quite disheartening to see the damage caused to the Friary Field by joyriders in the early hours of Sunday morning.

For those of you who haven’t passed by the Friary field in recent months, extensive works have been carried out by schoolboy club, St Dominic’s FC to improve the drainage in the field.

The field itself is owned by the adjacent school and church of St Malachy’s but has always been used by St Dominic’s as their base to compete in the Dundalk Schoolboys League, while Dundalk Summer League side Pearse Celtic have also used the pitch for their home matches.

Following a unique agreement between the school, church and St. Dominic’s the schoolboy club were able to access Sports Capital Grant funding that is not accessible to the school and therefore they were able to carry out the work which was needed to improve the playing surface which is prone to regular flooding in the winter months.

The club had to fundraise themselves to make a significant contribution to the ground works and while the work cost more than was first envisaged the field was sown with grass seed and would have once again been available to the schoolboy club and school late next spring.

However on Sunday morning a joyrider entered the field at approximately 4.15am and drove around causing damage to the playing surface.

The club had plans to erect new fencing to protect the playing surface at a further cost of €11,000 in the coming weeks.

A damaged football field is not the end of the world and the damage can and will be repaired. Certainly there are far more challenging issues facing society.

However it must be very disheartening for those involved in the football club to see the damage and know that their hard work and the money raised by the local community is set back by some thoughtless yob all for a few minutes fun skidding a car around a football pitch.

The Friary field is a green oasis in town and is used by children playing games and people walking their dogs.

It would be horrible to see it turned into a fortress with the public locked out and denied access.