Vandals continue attacks at cricket HQ

By Tim Howard

The continued senseless destruction of large sections of the boundary fence at Grafton’s Ellem Oval has outraged the local sporting community.

The president of the Clarence River Cricket Association, Anthony Dickson, was astounded at the extent of the damage when he arrived at the ground on Saturday ahead of the first match of the season.

Dickson, also a player with the South Services first grade team, said the modern picket fence around ground was in a sorry state.

“It’s a beautiful oval this time of year, but there’s panels busted out every where,” Dickson said.

“I don’t know what we can do,” he said. “The council don’t seem to want to do anything. It’s starting to drive us insane.”

Dickson said the location of the heaviest damage to the fence, near the skate park, was a clear indication of  who were the culprits.

“It’s a beautiful oval, with a modern clubhouse and this is happening. It’s a bad look,” Dickson said.

The classic picket fence surrounding the cricket ground in the park, named after the Ellem family who were synonymous with Clarence cricket for most of the 20th Century, was part of a $2.5 million upgrade off the Fisher Park precinct completed in 2011.

The skate park near the oval has been a popular addition to community infrastructure but has also been a venue for some anti-social behaviour.

The skate park, built in the early part of the century and upgraded at cost of of $64,000 in 2010 has been a source of conflict between young people using the park and cricketers ever since the picket fence went up in 2011.

Skate park users have at times interrupted cricket matches, riding bikes onto the field on at least one occasion and at times taunting players on the field near the fence.

Dickson said it was not surprising the heaviest damage to the picket fence has occurred along the perimeter next to the skate park.

“We’ve been told the damage to the fence now would cost about $10,000 to repair,” he said.

The skate park has been popular with young people in Grafton ever since it opened and has also been used as a venue for the popular Out of the Box youth outreach service.

But it also been the scene of a number of assaults and other anti-social behaviour and also a spectacular vehicle fire in March 2022.

Dickson said damage to the fence had continued over a number of years but had not been repaired.

“We’ve got this beautiful cricket oval going around about three quarters of the ground, with this modern clubhouse,” he said.

“But that section near the skatepark has had all the palings busted off and even the rails have been pulled down.

“Now they’ve smashed up another section of the fence coming back towards the clubhouse. Something’s got to be done. It has to stop.”

Vandals have also moved inside the fence to damage the ground with wicket covers destroyed and people riding bikes on the wicket surface when it was wet.

Dickson said leading umpire up Tony Blanch, who is also the wicket curator at the ground, had met with the police after the latest vandal attack.

“I don’t know what we can do,” he said. “We’ve had these problems for a long time, but it always seem to end up with nothing happening.”