Sports club trashed in sickening raid No 2

By early afternoon a despondent group were examining the wreckage of Bexhill United's Polegrove clubhouse, trashed in weekend raid.

In a carbon copy of the raid which wrecked the parent club's headquarters after a charity concert, burglars had smashed a way into the clubhouse, leaving a trail of wreckage as they looted machines and stole equipment. The raid was discovered by club steward Billy Trivett. When he went to unlock the club he found the door frame had been partly wrenched off the building.

In smashing their way through an internal partition, the raiders had pushed a radiator to the floor.

They had then ripped the front off a gaming machine to get at the cash box and yanked the cash box off the pool table.

Bexhill United's Second XI have a local derby home game at Polegrove against Little Common on Saturday.

Grimly, Bexhill Athletic Community Association leader Dave Harris said amid the mess:"We'll get it cleared up in time- we've had plenty of practice...."

The raiders must have been in the building for some time and made a lot of noise but were not disturbed.

Dave Harris said: "They ripped the alarm out of its socket on the wall. This is exactly the same style of thing as it was at the Athletic Club - absolute brute force and ignorance. We can't begin to work out the cost of the damage yet. The Athletic Club raid was on November 2 - some dates you never forget!

"The pool table here was extensively played. They've smashed that. They've smashed the gaming machine. There were a pair of loudspeakers belonging to the lads. They'd brought them in for a disco night to help the club - they've gone."

As they worked, volunteers also found that a CD player bought only two weeks ago to replace a faulty unit had been stolen.

The clubhouse has steel bars over the windows and other security measures. But Dave Harris says: "If people want to get in they will just smash their way in, that's about the brain-power behind it. "

In the last raid on the Athletic Club, cash collected for child cancer victim Chloe Wright was stolen. The outrage brought a wave of disgust locally.

Ironically, the November 2 raid was featured in a television follow-up on Sunday. Now the club is planning a further fund-raising event for Chloe tomorrow featuring live band Abandoned.