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The club may be forced to temporarily move grounds after their main stand was battered by the storm
An English rugby ground has sustained “hundreds of thousands” of pounds worth of damage after being battered by Storm Goretti.
The storm arrived in the UK on Thursday evening, bringing gusts of up to 100mph as a rare red ‘danger to life’ warning was issued in parts of the country due to the “dangerous, violent” winds. It also brought heavy snow and left tens of thousands of properties without power, as well as causing travel chaos and forcing schools and businesses to shut.
While it hit Wales hard overnight, the south west of England was the region that bore the brunt of Storm Goretti, with more than 40,000 people suffering power outages into Friday morning.
The storm has caused significant damage to English Champ Rugby side Cornish Pirates’ home ground, with the roof on the main grandstand at the Mennaye Field having “great sections” blown off it in winds of around 90mph.
Ahead of meeting with insurers, club chief Sally Pettifer estimates the costs of repairing the damage could go into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
“I’m just incredibly grateful that the storm came at night and there was nobody on site because it’s incredibly dangerous,” she told BBC Sport.
“The roof is full of holes, great sections of it have been blown off, they’re buried in the pitch, they’re all around the site.
“The first thing we’re going to do is secure the site, so I really do implore people not to come down, it’s dangerous.”
While Pettifer is confident the club is covered, there are fears of the impact that repairing the damage will have on the club’s cashflow, with their next home match against Ampthill scheduled for just over two weeks’ time.
However, the Pirates chief revealed that there is already a contingency plan in place for that fixture, if the ground is still deemed unsafe to play at.
“We’ve already reached out to local clubs, Redruth and Camborne, the people I’ve spoken to have been incredibly welcoming,” Pettifer continued.
“They’ve looked, they don’t have matches on our next home match, 24 January, so if we needed to move, they’re willing to host us.
“But it might be that the repair plan says we can clear the debris and potentially have that stand available, as long as everybody comes with an umbrella, it would be a stand without a roof.
“But as of this moment, we do not know.”
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