A FOOTBALL club has reacted with anger after its pitches were cut up by off road bikes for the second time this year.

Breightmet Wanderers AFC’s pitch at Dolan Park has been left with tracks across the field, and officials are concerned that games will have to be postponed.

This damage has come despite money being spent to improve fencing around the ground to try and stop these incidents.

The club now feel this has been “money wasted”, especially when the many local sports teams have been struggling for funds due to the impacts of the Covid pandemic.

Chairman of Breightmet Wanderers AFC, Wayne Gates, said: “It’s getting beyond a joke now.

“We pleaded with the local community and we thank those who listened, but these people have ripped the fence down in order to damage all of our hard work this time.

“With the weather as it has been, this is going to take a lot of work to repair and it feels as though we are just throwing money away.

“We are really pleading for help now from the council or even people like the Football Foundation. Even any local fencing companies that know how to stop idiots getting onto the pitch we’re working so hard to maintain and keep looking nice. Surely there’s somebody out there as this cannot continue.

“We may even have to postpone matches now, making a lot of people unhappy all just because of a couple of kids on a quad-bike.”

This is the second time the club has been vandalised by bikes in the past year, with quad bikes also tearing up the pitch in early February, when no games were being played.

The club had been generating funds, with the help of local businesses and the council, for a new gate in an effort to stop this, similar to one at the Stitch mi’ Lane end of the field.

Breightmet councillor, Stuart Hartigan, shared the disappointment.

He said: “Whoever did this needs to hang their head in shame.”

Good decent people look after this pitch for countless youngsters to enjoy responsibly.”