Edinburgh football club left with £2,700 bill after vandals trash ground

An Edinburgh football club has been left with a £2,700 bill after vandals trashed its ground on Tuesday evening for the third week running.

Louts smashed five windows at the Civil Service Strollers ground in Christie Gillies Park, Muirhouse, as well as smashing more than a dozen seats, and breaking three sets of goal posts.

“Unfortunately we had another visit from the vandals over the last few days,” the club told followers on Twitter, “This is the third time in as many weeks.”

“If only these people knew how many volunteer hours go into running a club.”

Speaking to the Evening News, Club President, Russell Pryde, said: “We have no idea why anyone would want to do this to our club.

“It's very frustrating when these things happen. Our club is run entirely by volunteers and all the money to run it has to be generated.

“We don't receive any grants to operate,” he explained, “this latest vandalism spree will mean we have to find money to replace the windows, seats and goals.”

New goalposts alone are likely to rack up a £2,000 bill for the Scottish Lowland League side.

It comes after years of development work at the club, which invested around £80,000 in a new facility and pitch floodlights in 2019.

“We have developed the club over the last five or six years with lots of work to get us a license,” Russell said, “As well as the construction work we have worked to develop the club and this has included creating a youth section with over 120 youth players from the local area, and an under 20s team.”

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: "Around 5.30pm on Tuesday, 28 July, officers received a report of vandalism at a sports complex in Marine Drive, Edinburgh. Enquiries are ongoing."

A Message from the Editor

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

The dramatic events of 2020 are having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive. We are now more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription to support our journalism.

Subscribe to the Edinburgh Evening News online and enjoy unlimited access to trusted, fact-checked news and sport from Edinburgh and the Lothians. Visit https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/subscriptions now to sign up.

By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Joy Yates

Editorial Director