Mower worth £17k stolen from Bellingham's ex-club

Vice chairman Andy Bullingham and club chairman Andy Pountey were alerted to the theft on Sunday morning

A West Midlands football club had its mower stolen while its chairman and vice chairman were at Wembley watching former player Jude Bellingham in the Champions League final.

Stourbridge Football Club vice chairman Andy Bullingham said the theft happened some time on Saturday evening.

Thieves cut through padlocks and stole the vehicle, which cost the club about £17,000 five years ago.

He said he hoped someone could help them out with a loan in the short term while they worked out how they could replace it.

"We've come away having had the most brilliant time having watched one of our lads who played for us when he was small winning the Champions League to then have a phone call to say the mower was gone the following morning," he said.

Bellingham, from Stourbridge, began playing football at Stourbridge Juniors before he joined Birmingham City aged seven.

Mr Bullingham said they received a call at about 10:00 BST on Sunday to say somebody had broken in during the evening on Saturday, cut padlocks off and stolen the mower used for its junior section at the club.

The mower was taken some time on Saturday evening, the club said

"When we bought it five years ago, it was not shy of £20,000 so you can imagine it takes some replacing when you've got just volunteers and people putting their time and effort in for nothing," Mr Bullingham said.

"Raising the money to try and replace that is going to be hell if I'm honest.

"We've got in excess of 300 kids - boys and girls - playing for us and we try to keep the facilities in the best conditions possible and to do that, you need decent quality gear.

"This was an expensive, very good mower that did the job so we're now without one which is going to make life really difficult.

"You've either got to loan money to pay for it or find the money to replace it at some point and that's never that easy."

But he said the theft did not detract from the enjoyment he and club chairman Andy Pountney experienced at Wembley on Saturday.

"It doesn't take away from the fun we had at the games - it was brilliant to see Jude win the Champions League and hopefully he can do the same in the Euros for us."

Victorious Real Madrid player Jude Bellingham was joined by his family at the Champions League final on Saturday