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Cornish Pirates crowdfund to help pay for storm damage

Cornish Pirates have launched a crowdfunding campaign to help pay for damage caused by last month’s storm.

Storm Goretti severely damaged the main stand at Stadio Mennaye, causing damage of around £200,000, which was insured.

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But further damage caused by Storm Ingrid to the club’s electronic scoreboard, electrical equipment and another stand is unlikely to be compensated.

The club moved its final game to Camborne and its next home game will also be played in neighboring countries, with a loss of revenue of around £10,000 per game and a total uninsured cost of almost £100,000.

Cornwall Pirates chief executive Sally Pettyfer told BBC Sport: “I feel very sad when people say to me ‘please help’.”

“The moment the storm hit, a lot of people offered to help and I said ‘no no no, you know there’s insurance, that’s what it’s for’, but we didn’t anticipate how much more it would cost than the insurance to rebuild.

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“The cost of each away game is between £9,000 and £10,000, not including lost revenue.

“We don’t have the capacity to withstand the impact, so the damage caused by the storm and the attendant costs of having to play elsewhere, and the loss of revenue because we have to pay back hospitality because people can’t come because there’s not enough space.

“Going forward we were in a really good position but we just didn’t anticipate the difficulties of physical damage to things like the scoreboard and really boring stuff like the electrical equipment for the public address system and the electrical equipment for the camera stands and things we had to have because we were a Championship club and the storm just wiped them out.

“So it’s a tricky moment and when people said ‘we can help’, I said ‘no, no, no’ and now I say ‘yes, yes, yes’.”

Cornish Pirates face Ampthill at Camborne last week [Brian Tempest]

After playing Apt Hill at Camborne Recreation Ground on January 24, the club hopes to return to Menna Stadium this weekend to take on London Scots.

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But due to additional damage caused by Storm Ingrid, the club was forced to play a second game at Camborne, with the date moved to Sunday 8 February.

However, Pettyfer believes this will be the last home game to have to be rescheduled, with Nottingham due to visit on February 21 and a friendly against Premier League side Harlequins two weeks later.

“We’ll be there. If we have to hire temporary generators, run new wires, run new leads,” Pettyfer said.

“We have these fantastic grounds crews who have gone some way to repairing the microcom stations that were damaged by Storm Ingrid, and we have other contractors lined up who have a clear commitment that we will be ready for Quinn.

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“But Nottingham we will reach Mennaye on the 21st, barring another storm.

“So every part of the plan is we’ll be there – we may be in the stands without a roof, but we’ll be there.”

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