ERLANGER, Ky. (WXIX) – A Northern Kentucky sports club is forced to relocate teams after the fields they use were vandalized.
The Erlanger Lions Youth Activities’ fields are now covered in tire tracks.
“To play on them right now would be an unsafe environment,” explained Fusion FC President Ben Lighthall. “Further back isn’t safe, where it’s a little softer the ditches are deeper. I definitely don’t want any kids out playing out here right now.”
Someone drove through the soccer fields sometime between April 3 and April 5.
Lighthall says he found the damaged fields on April 5.
“The individual took the truck pretty much, through the 9v9 field space and made sure to go out to two more of our fields back there and cut through every single field and hit each one individually,” Lighthall said.
This is not the first time vandals have hit here.
Paul Hendrickson, with Erlanger Youth Activities, says cameras were vandalized and damaged on Easter weekend. Luckily, they replaced them before the fields were turfed.
He says they try to keep the fields open to the community.
“Unfortunately, it’s becoming harder and harder to be that open and vulnerable due to acts like this,” Hendrickson said.
Lighthall said they have had people offer to help the club out by coming to aerate and seed for free.
In the meantime, he’s had to relocate all the teams to different fields across the community.
“There’s a lot of teams that usually use this space,” explained Lighthall. “Twenty-one teams a week, about 300 kids. It’s a lot of kids to move around.”
As a nonprofit, they say everything is on a volunteer basis, so it’s already hard to get work done, but they’ve been overwhelmed with community support since the vandalism.
Call Erlanger police at 859-356-3191 if you have any information.
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