By Marcus Uhe
St Mary’s Cricket Club President Troy Cashman is confident that his club’s season on-field will not be affected by the stunning and shocking robbery that rocked the club last week.
Shipping containers, used as temporary storage facilities for St Mary’s and St Johns Old Collegians Football Club while the new WJ Crowe Pavilion is being constructed, were stolen from Thomas P Carroll Reserve between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning.
Brazen CCTV footage shows a truck entering the Reserve under the cover of darkness and removing containers in multiple visits.
Police estimate the total value of the stolen goods in the containers, including memorabilia, honour boards, playing and ground management equipment, kitchenware, tables and chairs to be around $25,000.
“I got a phone call on Tuesday that started with ‘please sit down’ and got told that we’ve been robbed,” Cashman recalled.
“Everything we had, because we don’t have any changerooms, was in the shipping container.
“If you think of anything cricket, and we’re still trying to think of things, it’s all gone.”
Of utmost financial value was the $5000 wicket covers, while it’s difficult to place a value on timeless club artifacts such as honour boards, premiership trophies and photos.
“There’s nothing of value in our (container) for them, but there was for us.
“We were lucky, we took photos of it (the memorabilia) in case something happens, so that’s going to help us replace them… but there’s lots of premiership cups and photos that are going to be hard to replace.
“The premiership cups from all the different grades and photos of life members and things like that, we have family connections and might be able to work it out in the end, but there’s a lot of things in there and it’s very sad.”
Thankfully, through the tremendous support of rival clubs, apparel company Kookaburra, the City of Greater Dandenong and others, all teams scheduled to take to the field this weekend were able to do so, in Turf 1, Turf 1 Reserves and A Grade, with the fourths in D Grade fortunately having a bye.
While the results weren’t in their favour, the fact they even took to the field at all was the best result for the club.
“We had so much assistance from so many people,” Cashman said.
“So many people, and rivals that I played cricket against, have rung me up and said ‘We want to help out’, or ‘What can we do?’.
“Narre South yesterday, we contacted them on Thursday to say ‘please bring your own chairs, there’ll be no afternoon tea’, and they came and provided afternoon tea for our guys.
“It’s amazing, that side of things.
“We don’t think we’ve lost any players through it, we still think we’ll have four sides next week and it will be the same as normal.
“The best thing that will happen for us is that we can move into our new rooms, even though we’ve got nothing to move in with.”
Police say no arrests had been made as of Sunday evening as the investigation continues.
Anyone who witnessed the incident or with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report at crimestoppersvic.com.au
