Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Joyriders churn-up local football pitches
T H E v ice cha i r ma n of Monifieth Athletic Football Club has spoken out after t he i r fo otba l l pitc hes were vandalised by rogue drivers.
CCTV shows t wo cars on the pitch doing “handbrake turns”, which churned it up on Monday evening, ahead of an important league game against Maryfield.
The pitch, near Riverview Caravan Park, is used by the team to train and play on.
Despite the damage to the ground, vice-chairman Andy Adam said the game was able to go ahead, but warned the outcome could have been very different.
He said it costs the club and Angus Council time and money to sort the pitch after it is damaged.
Andy added there had also been an increase in litter being left on the pitches at Riverview recently.
He said: “The league game had to go ahead but it’s not good when you have extra ruts on the football pitch. We had to go out with rollers and roll out the ground to get it as flat as possible. It caused extra work for our volunteers.
“It’s just really sad to see that somebody thinks they can have fun and destroy football pitches that other people have put time and effort into.”
Andy said the damage could cost up to £500 to repair, adding: “We will probably need two to three turn bags of soil.
“That’s money not being used on the children to get them new equipment, instead it’s being used to repair mindless vandalism.”
He added: “We used to have problems before, they used to do it quite regularly but the council put up fencing. However it looks like they have worked out a way to get through from the trees.
“During the summer we get a lot of cars congregating in that car park and there is a lot of antisocial behaviour that we do report to police.
“We are forever picking up littler from there. The car park is a bit of a magnet for people to go to congregate.
“We want to make sure that everyone can use the open ground for dog walking, and football.”
Andy said when the team are not training they leave the goals for members of the public to use, something which might have to change.
“We are still reviewing CCTV,” he added. “It looks like there were two vehicles on the pitch that were doing handbrake turns. The matter may have to be reported to the police.”