Vandals target football club

Volunteers from a football club have been left devastated after vandals left tyre tracks on the clubs’s pitch.

Between Saturday evening and the early hours of Sunday morning vandals drove onto the pitch at Cottesmore AFC’s Westray Park ground - the latest in a long line of attacks on the club.

During the past few years, vandals have littered the club with graffiti, damaged stands, burnt down changing rooms and stolen items.

The Leicestershire Senior League Premier Division club say the vandalism is preventing it from gaining promotion - as cash needed to make improvements to the ground is being spent on repairs.

Steve Duffy, chairman of the club, said: “If you go to the centre circle, it is like someone has been on an ice rink.

“We have two groundsmen who come here twice a week, mowing the pitch and cultivating it.

“It is absolutely soul destroying, especially for the two groundsmen.”

Steve explained that improvements must be made to the ground before it can be allowed to play in a higher league.

“To get up we need to get the ground up to scratch, we need to stop the vandalism - we need some money.”

He added that in an effort to prevent further acts of vandalism, the club wanted to install wooden fencing around the pitch but was unable to do so due to a lack of funds.

Vandals were able to gain entry to the football club after a gate at its entrance was accidentally left unlocked.

A spokesman for Leicestershire Police said: “If anyone has any information about those responsible for the damage, please contact police on 101, quoting incident number 526 of June 13.”

To make a donation to the club so it can fund the fence installation call Steve on 07947867623.