Theft of boundary rope hits cricket club for six
Te Puke Cricket Club members have been left scratching their heads after a strange theft at the weekend.
On Saturday night someone stole the rope used to mark the boundaries during senior cricket games.
Club president Stephen Crossan said not only did he have “no idea” why someone would want it, but also it would have been quite an effort to get away with the 100m-long rope.
“We’ve actually borrowed it from the Bay Oval, so it’s not even ours,” he said.
“We borrowed it last weekend when we hosted the Bay of Plenty versus Counties Manukau game of cricket. It was literally still just out around the boundary.
“We thought it would’ve been safe because who would steal a boundary rope?
“It’s going to take a couple of people a good amount of time to drag that away and put it in a truck or trailer or whatever they’ve done. Moving it around is no easy feat, especially in the cover of darkness.”
It is not the first time the club has been targeted by thieves and vandals, which Crossan said was hard to understand because everything the club did was for the community.
“There’s countless times that we’ve had graffiti on the groundsmen shed, the clubrooms and the netball pavilion. Last year, someone broke into the groundsmen shed, drove the tractor through the rolling door and busted that off. We found the tractor and the mower up at the high school.
“They also stole our bowling machine which is about $5000 worth, we never got that back.
“Everything we do is for our own community so it just doesn’t make any sense, it’s just mindless. Every cent we raise or we make, it goes back to cricket and the community.
“I don’t think these people really do think, that’s the problem.”
He hoped those responsible for the theft would see the error of their ways and return the rope. Failing that he encouraged anyone who saw anything to get in touch with the club.
“It’s a big rope. You’d notice if you saw that on the back of a truck or anything.”