By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
AUSKICK players have been forced off a Narre Warren football oval due to beer bottles being smashed overnight just off the centre square.
Parents at Fountain Gate Gators Junior Football Club cleaned up after the thoughtless culprits for several hours on 30 August, picking up a “slab” of empty beer bottles including several shattered ones spread over a 400-square metre area of Max Pawsey Reserve’s eastern oval.
Greg Farley, the reserve’s committee-of-management secretary, said the glass was spotted just before an Auskick kick-to-kick with kids as young as five.
The clinic was then moved onto the reserve’s other oval in the meantime.
The ground wasn’t given the all-clear for the next day’s four footy matches until volunteers combed the dense grass several times for shards.
“With the intact bottles, at least you can see them – but then for them to smash it up …
“What if a kid fell on their knee, hand or face on a piece of glass?”
Mr Farley said the club wouldn’t have played on the ground on the weekend if not for a parent providing a portable vacuum cleaner for the job.
The reserve’s clubrooms and scoreboard had been plagued by vandals until CCTV was recently installed by the council, Mr Farley said.
However, the glass-littered football ground was shrouded in darkness at night.
Gators vice-president Peter Allan said the club routinely inspected the grounds for safety issues before games. That said, the clean-up was a stressful exercise for the club’s parents.
He said the offenders just didn’t seem to care for the young players.
“If it was someone close to them – their kids, brothers or sisters – maybe they’d think twice.”
