CHILDREN IN the Horeswood area of the district were directly affected by a break-in that occurred last week.

Sometime between Thursday night and Friday morning burglars broke into the store of Campile Utd.’s soccer ground and as one club member told The Echo “cleaned it out”.

A large quantity of equipment was taken during the break-in including line-marking equipment and grass cutters.

“They even took the sprongs and hammers,” said a club spokesperson.

“However, it’s the underage equipment that was most upsetting because they took a lot of the underage training gear,” he added.

That equipment is used by children as young as five and six years-of-age while other underage squads whose gear was taken included the U-10s, U-12s and U-14s.

“It happened in the last 24 hours and was reported to the Gardai,” said the spokesperson.

The break-in was discovered by a Fas worker who arrived at the pitch to begin marking it out for last weekend’s home games.

“He was going to get it ready for the weekend,” commented the source.

“When he got to the store all the equipment was gone,” he added.

However, in keeping with the community spirit of the area all matches scheduled to take place last weekend went on as planned thanks to a voluntary effort by club members.

The break-in was one of a number of incidents that took place within the Campile and Ramsgrange areas last week.

With over 200 members the club is one of the most active in the south east and like other sports organisations, especially those in rural areas, it relied heavily on the volunteer efforts of the community it serves to survive.

Because it doesn’t receive any major official financial backing a break-in like this could have devastating consequences as the spokesperson pointed out: “It’s not easy keep clubs going without something like this happening. The equipment was all bought over time and to have most of it taken in one swoop like this is horrible.”

The local childcare centre in Horeswood was also targeted.

The Gardai are fully investigating the incidents and anyone with information is asked to contact them in strict confidence on 051-421204.