VANDALS in Chipping Sodbury cost the town’s football and rugby clubs thousands of pounds after repeatedly attacking their premises in June 2007.

The Ridings Playing Field, off Wickwar Road, had been targeted by large groups of young people in recent months, with vandals ripping out steel barriers from the side of the football pitch and using them to batter down one side of a dugout.

Honorary secretary of Chipping Sodbury Football Club Alan Green said the clubs were struggling to afford ongoing repair costs.

He said: “Over the past 12 to 18 months, the sports facilities including the clubhouses have been damaged more and more by mindless, drunken yobs.

“This latest attack on the dugouts just shows how determined these people are to cause as much damage as they can.”

Among other damage caused were smashed windows, roof tiles broken, outside lights damaged, and on several evenings motorcycles were driven across the pitches ruining the playing surfaces.

Although the pitches were private land, the clubs had no power to stop people using them, and the town council, and the sites owners, the Town Trust, were resorting to installing CCTV cameras on the site.