The facilities at Kilkenny based Thomastown G.A.A. Club was left severely damaged after an overnight attack on Friday night.
The damage was discovered after the club's hurlers arrived for a training session on Saturday morning. Members of the team noticed a jeep on the field and a group alongside it when they arrived to turn on the lights for their morning session. The group fled in the vehicle when approached. The pitch was left damaged by the jeep's tires while a juvenile goal-post was also left broken.
Speaking to Balls.ie, club chairman Ger Walsh expressed his disappointment at the damage: "You don't expect this sort of thing. We don't... maybe we should, but we don't lock the gates because we don't want to turn away people from coming down and pucking a ball around."
It is just disheartening. That pitch is iconic to us. We are there for 100 years or more. We got the chance to buy it in the mid-80s and we did. The club had it rented for years before that. That pitch has remained undisturbed for 100 years. The sod hasn't changed, we never did a thing with it.
It's beside the river, a lot of people come down and walk around. It's beautiful. You'd often time go down and there would be youngsters taking frees or practising sidelines. It's there for everybody.
The Gardaí have been notified and handed a licence plate that was left behind at the scene. Anyone with any information can contact Thomastown Garda Station on 056 7754150.
