Kids' matches disrupted by joyriders churning up football pitches
A CHILDREN’S football club in Burton has hit out at a motorist who drove over its pitches, leaving two of them so badly damaged they cannot be played on.
The main full-size pitch of Burton Youth Football Club was the most devastated, with deep tyre marks believed to have been caused by doughnut manoeuvres being performed.
In total seven out of the club’s 10 pitches were driven over on the privately-owned site, off Salisbury Road, in an incident which is believed to have taken place during Tuesday night.
A spokesperson for the club told the A&T: “Two of the pitches have serious damage, while the rest have just been driven across.
“On one of the two pitches they’ve done circles – doughnutting – and on the other they’ve driven across it, but because the land was wet the tyres have ploughed deep furrows.”
As a result of the damage, games are expected to be disrupted for a number of weeks until repairs can be carried out.
The spokesperson explained eight teams that had been due to use a pitch each for training on Saturday would now have to be moved around between the ones not so badly damaged.
Due to the club being completely self-funded, it will have to find the money to pay for putting the pitches right.
“It seems mindless, and it’s upsetting for the volunteers,” the spokesperson continued.
“But it’s even worse for 30-40 kids as it’s going to affect their weekends for the foreseeable future.”
The club posted pictures of some of the damage on a local Facebook page, prompting a number of users to express their anger and frustration in the comments section.
One person wrote: “What is wrong with people these days? No respect for anything.”
Another user suggested the same offender could be responsible for tyre damage caused to the village green around the same time.
In response, Burton Youth Football Club posted: “It would seem that this happened all over the local area last night.
“It’s a fairly prolific problem although mostly on farm/estate land and preventing it is nigh on impossible. Padlocks and even logs don’t stop them.”
