Flooding has devastated facilities at Lossiemouth FC’s Grant Park home days after volunteers completed a major refurbishment.
Torrential rain overloaded drains in the town on Tuesday, sending sewage flowing into the team’s upgraded dressing rooms.
The flooding caused significant upset at the club – and a great deal of frustration as a delegation from the SFA was to have visited yesterday to inspect the new facilities.
Club officials now hope to speak with council chiefs to see what can be done to protect the ground and neighbouring properties from the threat of future damage.
In the meantime, Lossie volunteers and club staff will now have to turn their attention to giving Grant Park a deep clean before turning their attention to a fresh make-over.
Long-serving Coasters’ secretary, Alan McIntosh, said: “We have just completed work on the home dressing room and were about to get underway in the visitors one.
“Obviously that’s been knocked on the head for the moment until we get our own changing room ship-shape again.
“We went down to the ground yesterday to start the cleaning-up process after sewage came up through our drains and into the refurbished dressing rooms and showers.”
Mr McIntosh said the drains in the road outside “couldn’t cope with the torrential rain” which came down Moray Street, Church Street and the lane in between, just across from the club’s front door.
“The water came through the front door and went right through both dressing rooms, the referee’s changing room and the kit-room,” he said.
“Thankfully it didn’t get into the boardroom. It only got as far as the door.
“We have already dismantled everything in our home dressing room, including the lockers which would have been destroyed if they had soaked-up the water.
“We have had to disinfect everything due to the ingress of sewage, all on the eve of an SFA inspection, while we’ve also had to put sand-bags at the front door and in the new shower rooms.”
Mr McIntosh hopes council officials will meet him at the ground in the coming days but says he “has his doubts” as there has been a problem with drainage in the area for years.
“For me the simplest solution to what has been a perennial problem for the club is to tie the drain at the front of our building in to a main sewer or a main drain,” he said.
“It’s as simple as night and day to me, but they just won’t have it.”
In reply, a spokesperson for Moray Council said: “The intense rainfall in Lossiemouth has caused surface water flooding in some areas.
“Grant Park, home to Lossiemouth FC, is situated within a flood risk area.
“Regarding the reports of waste water, this is a Scottish Water responsibility and we have indicated this to local councillors who are liaising with the football club, encouraging the football club to contact Scottish Water directly to investigate the issue.”
A member of Scottish Water’s flooding team is due to visit the town today to investigate the issues further before further action is identified.
A spokesman said: “We would like to apologise to Lossiemouth Football Club and other local residents who were affected by sewer flooding yesterday.
“The immediate priority of our local team when we receive reports of flooding within homes and other premises, whatever the cause, is to attend, provide assistance to customers and clean up.
“Flooding is a complex issue, typically with a number of sources and mechanisms. In periods of intense rainfall, large volumes of surface water can overwhelm the sewers and road drains.”