Posted online: Jan 20th, 2010

The Treasurer and PRO of QPS FC Terence Hegarty has described the suspected arson attack on the club last week as an attack on the whole community of Muff and Quigley’s Point.

The fire is believed to have been started maliciously between 2 and 3am on Thursday morning in front of the mobile home that the club use as an office. 

The structure was burnt to the ground and the contents of an adjacent steel container, where all the club’s equipment is kept, were also destroyed.

It comes just two months before they were due to move into their new clubhouse at their School Pitch home and has caused up to €4,000 worth of damage as well as thousands of hours of paperwork.

On Saturday morning, when the club should have been hosting its underage fun football academy, club committee members, Margaret McColgan, Terence Hegarty and Vincent McColgan were instead assessing the damage and beginning the clean up after the incident.

“Everyone connected with the club is just in shock and disgusted that someone would do this to a local sports club run by volunteers,” admitted Terence.

“We have almost 200 members and they have all been affected by this. There were untold hours put into the preparation of administration documents for child protection and members listings and these will all have to be redone.

“Thousands of euros worth of equipment including footballs, rigs and groundskeeping tools have all been destroyed and it will be a long time before we have the funds to replace all that. We had our annual draw a couple of weeks ago so we don’t want to be going back to the community to ask for more money so soon after they generously contributed to that.”

Club secretary Margaret McColgan added that despite their disgust the club’s network of volunteers would not be deterred in the work they do for the club.

“This is an attack on the whole community as this is a very popular club. If someone was in the mobile home at the time this could have been a murder investigation and I would appeal to anyone who has any information to contact the Gardai.”     

The club are aiming to have their facilties back in use by the end of the month but parents are urged to check with the club first.

Anyone with information on the incident can contact Muff Gardai station on 0749384002 or they can contact the club directly on 00447517660650.