Football club thief scores again

A THIEF has scored again at a football club's changing rooms.

Six days after Stevenage Boro players had property stolen at the club academy site in Shephalbury Park the dressing rooms at the club's Broadhall Way ground were targeted on Wednesday night last week.

During the Boro reserve game against Northampton Town a thief entered both dressing rooms and stole a quantity of cash, wallets, credit cards, mobile phones and other items belonging to the visitors.

While in the Northampton dressing room the thief also urinated over some personal clothing of one of the visiting players.

Following the second theft involving the club, Boro chief executive Bob Makin announced a tightening of security at Broadhall Way.

"More stringent security measures will be put in place immediately to make sure there is no further occurrences like we have suffered over the past week," said Mr Makin.

"With only 100 people at the ground for a game like this there are obviously not a lot of stewards and players are going up and down the tunnel all the time.

"If someone is wearing a tracksuit they might not be challenged. But someone entered both dressing rooms and stole a number of personal things.

"I would have hoped all players would have stored valuables in their cars or locked them away. This theft will mean our security being tightened at the ground on match days, and that is for all games."

Gareth Willsher, press officer at Northampton Town, said: "Players and staff lost some items during the game at Stevenage. We cannot go into exactly what has been stolen as this will form part of the police investigation into the incident."

Police say they have not ruled out at this stage that the same person might have been responsible for both incidents.

"Our investigations continue at Stevenage Boro into the thefts," said a police spokesman.