Crystal Palace were forced to arrange for a replacement coach to take them to Saturday’s Premier League victory over Middlesbrough after the original vehicle was vandalised outside the team hotel.
The coach was daubed with ‘Crystal Palace FC’ in red, white and blue paint across the sides and rear of the vehicle. The incident occurred hours before Palace secured a vital 1-0 win that lifted them out of the relegation zone.
Palace confirmed on Sunday that the team’s coach had been vandalised. “The team bus was covered in graffiti with the words ‘Crystal Palace’ overnight on Friday ahead of the game,” a spokesman said. “Police have been informed.”
Palace fans vandalise what they think is the boro coach. But boro flew down and borrowed one of the palace coaches causing £40k of damage 😅😅 pic.twitter.com/SsXn6F6KoR
— Rich Cook (@Rickyc1234) February 26, 2017
Palace’s assistant head groundsman, Dean Waters, also condemned the vandals and revealed that the coach could have been targeted because it was mistakenly believed to be taking the Middlesbrough team to Selhurst Park.
“£40,000 worth of damage on our coach thinking it was the Boro coach. Nice one! #cpfc,” Waters tweeted, before changing his privacy settings so that the post was no longer available to the public.
