MA Olympic is calling for help to find two mowers stolen from the Annandale football club

Thieves have stolen two mowers from a Townsville sporting club, forcing the committee to stump up the cost of grounds upkeep until a solution is found. Here’s how you can help >>>

Thieves have hit MA Olympic Football Club’s facilities over the weekend, breaking in through a fence and stealing two ride-on lawnmowers.

Mid-Saturday morning, a groundskeeper arrived at the ground on Mervyn Crossman Drive to find the back fence panel had been driven through to gain access.

The chain to the room where the two mowers, an orange Kubota z411 48 inch cutting deck, zero steer and a red Ferris IS2000Z 61 inch cutting deck, zero steer, were housed was cut.

The culprits took the one mower in between the 9pm Thursday night and 11am Saturday morning, then returned to take the second mower in the early hours of Sunday morning damaging it when attempting to start it.

“It really hurts the club,” under 12s coach Daniel Mackenzie said.

“Everyone who mows the lawns and helps out are all volunteers, we don’t have a huge amount of money to do these things, so to replace these is going to be a mission.”

MA Olympic Coach Daniel MacKenzie says the stolen mowers hurts the club.

There has been an outpouring of community support for the football club, with people putting their hands up to help out in the short term.

“It’s been overwhelming with people offering to help, so in the short term we will get the public in to help out where they’ve offered,,” Mr MacKenzie said.

“Long term that’s obviously not sustainable so we have to work out how we’re going to do that in the meantime.”

MA Olympic has more than 700 children and adults who play for the club and rely on equipment such as the two mowers to have the grounds in top shape for training and playing.

If they’re not found, Mr MacKenzie said the club was going to have to raise the funds to replace them.

“We don’t want to have to raise fees and things like that, so there needs to be ways we can get around this and help to get these mowers back,” he said.

MA Olympic Coach Daniel MacKenzie says the stolen mowers hurts the club.

It is not the first time MA Olympic has been hit, with thieves breaking into the facility two years ago and stealing $12,000 worth of copper, with the club putting security measures in place after this incident.

“We’d love support from council to put some boulders around the edges where we do keep getting broken into like other parks around town,” Mr MacKenzie said.

“In the meantime, we have to repair and forge on best we can.”

Police are investigating the theft, with no arrests made at this time.

If anyone has any information that can help get the two mowers back for the club, they are asked to contact police.

Originally published as MA Olympic is calling for help to find two mowers stolen from the Annandale football club