MEMBERS of Hatherleigh Town Football Club woke up on Saturday morning to discover that mindless vandals had decided to do 'donuts' overnight on their pitch.
There had been a hard frost overnight and someone had thought it fun to create huge ruts in the pitch. The result of this vandalism was that the club had to call off its first team match for that afternoon, as repairs were necessary and the injury risk to players and officials would have been too great.
The police were called and will be investigating the incident further.
A little comfort to the club was the number of players, supporters and town's people that turned out on the Saturday afternoon to try and repair the damage done to the pitch.
Roy Smith, club chairman said: 'It was a truly depressing experience to go down to the pitch at 8 in the morning to find such mindless vandalism.
'Why anyone would want to spoil the hard work and pleasure of local people I do not know.
'These people clearly do not play or enjoy local football, or have children in the town that play! It's a shame their idea of fun is to spoil other people's fun.
'The only bright part of the day was the overwhelming turnout of people to start to repair the pitch.
'Thirty to 40 people turned out with pitch forks and shovels to try and flatten out the ridges caused by a large 4 x 4.
'We are hopeful that it will be playable for the carnival day match on Saturday, but it may take a season or so for the pitch to be restored to its full glory.'
Mr Smith added that as consequence of the incident, the football club, in agreement with the sportsfield committee, have now agreed to padlock the gates to the ground to prevent cars accessing the ground.