North Haven footy club’s digital scoreboard hardware stolen, Magpies to use magnets for finals
Thieves have stolen the hardware of an Adelaide Footy League team’s scoreboard, forcing the club to upload scores manually for the upcoming finals series.
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An Adelaide Footy League Club will be forced to manually upload scores with magnets during the upcoming finals series after its digital scoreboard was vandalised.
Thieves stole the hardware that drives the digital scoreboard at North Haven Football Club last week.
The club had the scoreboard installed about 18 months ago.
It was sponsored by a prominent family at the club and in memory of a long-time player’s late grandfather, John Kolbig.
Trent Kolbig, John’s grandson, is set to play his 400th senior game for the club this Saturday.
Magpies president Lucas Maczkoiack said the club had notified SAPOL about the stolen scoreboard hardware but had not received any information on a potential culprit.
Maczkoiack said the club was forced to use an old scoreboard and had a volunteer enter magnetic numbers on a metal board during home games last week.
The Magpies’ division three team sits second with one minor round remaining and is likely to be awarded a home final.
“It was a full digital video screen and it had a control box which had all the hardware components in it,” Maczkoiack said.
“They (the thieves) broke into that box that houses all that equipment and stole the contents of it, rendering the screen useless.
“We reckon it happened on either Tuesday (August 18) or the Wednesday night.
“There’s no CCTV in the area that we’re aware of so I don’t think there’s any footage.
“Wires were specifically cut in there so they brought tools with them to remove it.
“Karma will always sort it out.”
Maczkoiack said it was set to cost about $7000 to repair the scoreboard and because the parts were coming from Melbourne, they were unlikely to arrive before the finals began in two weeks.
He was appealing for the local community to help with finding the perpetrator and encouraged anyone who knew anything about the incident to contact Crimestoppers.
“It was more disappointing for the kids to be honest,” Maczkoiack said.
“They feel like AFL superstars playing in front of that.
“It was probably more disappointing from their perspective from what they’re missing out on than anything else.
“We are working through our insurance at the moment to see if it’s something that can be covered and we are having a bit of a scramble to get it back up and running for finals.
“It’d be nice if anyone who knows anything could call SAPOL or Crimestoppers.”