Community and sports effort to help Navan club hit in arson attack
By: Louise Walsh
Supportive donations are also flooding into a Gofundme page set up on Tuesday morning by the OMP club who are facing a repair list of thousands of euro after a bag of rubbish was dragged to their Navan dressing rooms and set alight.
FAI Chief Executive John Delaney rang the club yesterday (Mon) to offer an undisclosed donation towards the repairs while Dundalk FC has pledged to replace one of the three kits destroyed by smoke damage, to the value of €600.
Mr Delaney was hoping to visit the club today (Tuesday) while the four Navan-based Dundalk players will present the kit to OMP in the coming weeks.
OMP United has vowed to 'keep fighting back' after the second arson attack at their Blackcastle grounds by vandals who the club has slated as 'mindless scumbags.
Smoke damage destroyed training equipment as well as the kits and a new ceiling is also on the repair list after the fire spread up the outside of the wall and into the roof of the Blackcastle building at about 1.30am on Sunday.
Gardai are investigating the second such incident at the grounds which has counted the costs of six episodes of vandalism in the last three years, according to committee member Declan Jordan.
"This is about the sixth incident at the club in the last three years so it does wear you down," he said.
"You think do we keep going, it's that disheartening but then you see all the support from people on social media and then you say to yourself, well we're going to keep fighting back.
"There are 180 kids at the club and two adult teams and there are a lot of coaches here who put so much time and effort into the club. They were all disheartened and gutted after the incident."
However the committee got a huge boost by the 'incredible support' received since the attack.
"We got a call from John Delaney from the FAI to offer a donation for the repairs and he said he'd try and make it down before heading off with the Irish squad today (Tues)
"Then Dundalk FC general manager Martin Connolly rang asking if they could replace a kit. He said their Navan-based players Ross Treacy, Gary Rogers, Jamie McGrath and Dylan Connolly would present it to the club.
"We also had a committee meeting on Monday night and decided to answer calls from the public to set up a Gofundme page which is receiving fantastic response. We would just like to wholeheartedly thank the public, Dundalk and the FAI for all their incredible support - it has really given us all at OMP a huge boost."
Meanwhile, the incident has generated anger on social media by hundreds of people who have posted their outrage, calling the vandals 'scumbags'
One post said: "An absolute disgrace. So disheartening for all the volunteers involved with OMP who work so hard for the club for vandals to do this."
Another stated: "Terrible attack on the community of sport" while yet another added: "It's very sad that there are young people who feel the need to do this."
The gofundme page can be accessed at: https://www.gofundme.com/