A grassroots football club is picking up the pieces and getting back on its feet after receiving £4,000 in donations to replace stolen goalposts.
Poet’s Corner Football Club was forced to re-arrange and cancel matches at short notice after heading to Wish Park on Sunday to find 16 of its goalposts had been stolen.
But the club is now looking to bounce back after a crowdfunding campaign to get the goalposts back raised thousands for the club with a host of famous backers including Fatboy Slim.
James Evans, chairman of the grassroots club, said: “We turned up on Sunday morning to set up matches but the goalposts had been taken.
“Potentially 11 sides could play on there any home weekend – we have 220 players and around 150 are affected by this.
“It’s great to see clubs that are traditionally rivals on the pitch come together to support each other.
“This is like we have gone 1-0 down in a league decider but we are rallying the troops.”
James, whose son plays for the team, set the club up in 2016 with fellow parent Trevor Wilson so their children could play organised football.
The team started as a five-a-side team but has now grown to over 200 players.
James said the club suspected the posts had been stolen on Friday, November 22, but the theft was only noticed the following Sunday when the club arrived to set up games.
He added that thieves had specifically targeted the padlocked kit store, taking eight sets of goalposts but leaving the crossbars.
Having cancelled and re-arranged games, James set up a Just Giving page that afternoon to try and raise £3,000 to get the club back on its feet.
The fundraiser has since hit over £4,000 with donations from local grassroots clubs as well as councillors and Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim.
Additional money will go towards further supplies for the club.
James told The Argus the disruption had forced the club to rearrange games including looking at hiring an expensive 3G football pitch to keep fixtures going ahead.
A spokesman from Sussex Police said: "Sixteen goalposts worth more than £3000 were stolen from a lock-up in Wish Park, Hove, over the weekend of November 23-24.
"The aluminium goalposts, the property of Poets Corner FC, a football club attended by more than 150 children, ranged in size from junior 8ft 6 inches to full size 9ft 6 inches posts. The crossbars were not taken, which may mean that a vehicle not large enough for them was used.
"It is thought the burglary occurred between 7pm on Friday and 11am on Sunday (November 22-24) when the loss was discovered.
"Police would like to talk to anyone with information about the incident, especially if you saw any suspicious activity in the area between those times. It may be that someone saw the goalposts being loaded into a vehicle, but did not realise that a crime was occurring.
"Please report online or call 101 quoting serial 488 of 24/11."
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