ST. ALBANS, W.Va. — The Saint Albans High School Soccer program says they can’t believe the incredible response from the community stepping up to help after a fire broke out at Crawford Field’s ticket booth Friday night causing significant damage to their equipment.
St. Albans Boys’ Soccer Coach Marc Adkins told MetroNews that at first, they didn’t realize what was going on when they were getting text messages from players and calls from the school’s athletic department saying there was a fire. He said it all became clear when they arrived to the field, however.
“We got over there Friday evening and we watched everything unfold in front of us,” Adkins said. “The next day we went in there to see if there was anything left and it was kind of all gone, it was pretty devastating to us.”
Adkins said years of collecting donations and fundraising efforts to acquire all of the equipment had all gone up into flames overnight.
Girls Soccer Coach at St. Albans Lara England said she tried not to assume the worst.
“My initial reaction was, well, little fires happen, maybe it won’t be that bad, maybe it won’t be everything, you know, you try to not go to the worst case situation through all of this, but it was just shocking to say the least,” England told MetroNews.
The soccer program at St. Albans stores its equipment in the Crawford Field ticket booth.
The St. Albans Fire Department ruled the blaze, which broke out after the Red Dragons’ football game against Lincoln County Friday night, an accident. They said the flames erupted around 10:15 p.m. Friday and are believed to have been caused by the improper disposal of fireworks that were accidentally discharged from within the ticket booth.
Adkins said schools and businesses all across the community didn’t hesitate to help them raise the funds back to replace the equipment following the fire, and it was heartwarming.
“The way the community came out, supported us, fundraised for us, and the donations were just extremely overwhelming to see all of the love and support for our team across the Valley, our local community and our soccer community as well,” he said.
The St. Albans Red and Black Foundation started a GoFundMe page for the boys’ and girls’ soccer teams’ new equipment, and Adkins said others throughout the community quickly followed suit in raising the donations as well.
He said Capital High School’s Soccer program has really gone above and beyond to help. They will be donating all of their concession proceeds raised at Monday night’s game for the effort.
England said it was amazing to see how quickly they were able to surpass their original fundraising goal of $6,000 with everyone stepping up to help.
“Oh my gosh, it was so incredible and the turn around time was so crazy too,” she said. “You know, I think everybody was just so shocked it had happened and that all of our stuff was lost, and the community really stepped up, I mean we raised almost $10,000 dollars.”
The donations will go toward replacing the soccer program’s game balls and practice balls, around 5 practice goals, and training equipment they use in the off season that were all destroyed in the blaze.
Adkins said their season is currently underway as they go against Nitro Monday evening in their sectional tournament.
He said as soon as their season is over though, they get right back to training for the next year, and these donations will go a long way for them.
“You know, to get all of that equipment back as soon as we can and to just start working to finish up this year and start working on next year, we’re not even going to skip a beat with using all of the donations we’ve collected so far,” said Adkins.
England said she hasn’t even got to talk to the girls yet where it all happened so fast, but when she does at Monday nights’ match, she is going to talk about how it can be viewed as an impactul life lesson for them.
“I mean, granted, worse things could happen, and thankfully no one was hurt or injured or anything, but it’s going to be something really cool that they can take in their lives and use to be better humans,” England said.
The fire broke out right after everyone attending the football game had left Friday night.