The clubrooms at Shepparton Swans Football Netball Club were left vandalised at the weekend following a random graffiti attack.
Club members arrived to the ground on Saturday morning to prepare for the Goulburn Valley League round four encounter against Euroa, but instead of feeling excited for the day’s action, they were left shocked, angry and disappointed.
Graffiti was spray-painted on the front walls and windows of the Princess Park-based clubroom building.
The vandals defaced the clubrooms with various tags which included ‘SGAT’ and ‘Lost boys’, along with ‘SKUM’.
Swans’ president Jarrod Sutherland said the club was searching for answers as to why it was randomly attacked.
“It’s just really disappointing. A lot of people at the club are just extremely disappointed,” he said.
“I didn’t realise until Saturday morning before the home match (against Euroa) that it happened.
“I just don’t really understand why someone does something like that. And then the other thing that comes from this is that it can play on people’s minds and now it adds a level of fear to that area when people shouldn’t feel unsafe.”
“The next step is to get it cleaned up now.
“We’ll have to discuss with council to help get it cleaned, some of the stuff on the windows will be a bit harder to clean.
“I think the person or people who did it should be coming down and cleaning it up to be honest.”
The Swans’ president said he was trying to search for the positives out of the graffiti attack.
Sutherland hoped that the recent vandalism resulted in funding to improve the lighting at the club.
“I guess the only positive to come out of this is that, apart from the graffiti, there was no damage or nothing was stolen from inside the clubrooms,” he said.
“I’m trying to look at it with a glass-half-full approach. The clubrooms are pretty tucked away down there and it’s poorly lit at night, so hopefully we can get some grants from council to better improve the lighting down there.”
The vandalism took place before the Swans hosted their Ladies’ Day function.
Despite the shock at the start of the day, the event was still able to go ahead.
“It was still a fantastic day despite everything else that had happened,” Sutherland said.