A community has been left frustrated and saddened after vandals broke into a playing field pavilion leaving a trail of mess in their wake.
Vandals sprayed sanitiser over the kitchen and toilet areas of Bodham’s playing field pavilion before taking biscuits, sweets and drinks stored in the building by East Coast Warriors Football Club.
Members of the football club arrived at the pavilion, located off Cromer Road in North Norfolk, on Saturday morning to find coffee cups strewn over the floor of the building and food, used for match and training day refreshments, thrown in the nearby hedges.
It is not known how the suspects entered the building but the damage, which is estimated to have ruined £50-worth of stock, took place overnight on Friday October 23.
Emma Gosling, the secretary of East Coast Warriors Football Club, who discovered the damage, said: “We got up there Saturday morning and found a bit of a mess and that quite a bit of our stock had been taken.”
Miss Golsing said following the break-in, the Sheringham branch of Tesco had stepped in to replace the damaged stock free of charge, something the club was “really thankful” for.
She said: “We work really hard, we have only recently taken over the club and we’ve worked really hard to build it up. It was disheartening to find [the stock] wasted and ruined. We worked really hard to get it to where it was.”
Peter Bedell, treasurer of the Bodham Playing Field Committee, said it was not the first time the building had been targeted by vandals.
He said: “We’re a charity. We try and run the football field for the benefit of children and it’s ruined by others.
“It’s frustrating. We have a team of volunteers looking after the grounds and it’s disappointing for them. I go to the playing field every day and I’m just frightened I’m going to find something else,” he said.
Police are appealing for witnesses. Contact PC Adam Hussey at Fakenham Police Station on 101 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
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