Graffiti damage done to Silchester Pavilion

A village sports pavilion was vandalised last week by an offender or offenders who sprayed graffiti on several pieces of public property.

The Silchester Pavilion, which is located on the village’s playing field, is home to a football club, cricket club and pop-up café.

The vandalism occurred just days after the Silchester Fun Run, an event which was raising money for a rebuild of the pavilion after it was damaged by a fire last summer.

Silchester Cricket Club groundsman Paul Hearn discovered the graffiti, which is all over some portable toilets, football dugouts and parts of the pavilion itself, on the evening of Wednesday, May 3.

He said: “It’s just frustrating that an individual felt that they needed to do this.

“With all the work being done by both the football club and the cricket club and the Silchester Association, it’s all voluntary work, and now we’ve got to spend time cleaning this up.

“It’s just very, very frustrating.”

Mr Hearn believed that the damage occurred sometime on Wednesday, as he was working on the pitch on Tuesday evening and when he locked up and left, it wasn’t there.

“It’s the first time we’ve seen this type of graffiti tagging in Silchester,” he added. “I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before.”

After he saw some similar graffiti tags in images on Facebook, Mr Hearn believes whoever was responsible has been spraying graffiti in nearby Tadley for some time.

He said he also feared that when the new pavilion is built, it could be targeted again.