Sabotage bid at Tynecastle
VANDALISED: The goalposts at Tynecastle were damaged
Police are investigating the break-in at the stadium early on Saturday morning.
An emergency maintenance team managed to repair the posts an hour before Hearts kicked off the match against Falkirk. They went on to win 2-1.
The club said today the vandal had been caught on CCTV and the footage had been handed to the police.
A spokesman said he believed the vandalism had been "malicious" and only the goalposts had been damaged.
The club's managing director Campbell Ogilvie said the break-in had not interfered with their preparation for the match.
He said: "This is clearly unhelpful and an act of vandalism but our ground maintenance team have sorted out the problem.
"Saturday's game went ahead as planned without any problems."
The vandal managed to damage both sets of heavy metal posts.
A spokesman for the football club said they believed there had just been one culprit.
He said: "We have CCTV surveillance. It's likely that the person will be found. I think it was someone being malicious. There were cars in the car park overnight but nothing else was damaged. It seems to be someone who had a malicious streak.
"The important thing is the goal posts are fixable. The final repairs were at 2pm, an hour before kick-off. We were able to repair them and the game went ahead."
He said the cost of the damage had been "minimal" as they have their own on-site maintenance team.
He added: "We don't know how they got in. The security at the club is very good, but sometimes when someone has a will to be malicious, it could be difficult to prevent it. We're quite sure this will be a one-off. The matter is with the police now."
A Lothian and Borders Police spokesman said that they were investigating the vandalism.
Hearts fan Alex Robertson, 30, from Broughton, was at the match, and said the damage could clearly be seen from the stand.
He said: "You could see a bit of tape around the corners of the goalposts and the bar. It looked like it was quite heavily taped.
"They must have broken in through the gates at the Gorgie Road end. It would be quite easy to get into the stadium if you wanted to go on to the pitch. But it would have taken quite a lot of effort to break the cross bar. I think it was a Hibs fans with a drink in them."
Taken from the Scotsman
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