Vandals leave community football pitch unplayable

The club discovered the Gateshead pitch had been damaged on Friday

A football club's pitch has been left "completely unplayable" after vandals tore up the ground with quad bikes.

Newcastle Dynamo FC, based near the Angel of the North in Lamesley, Gateshead, said its entire pitch was ruined at some point last week, with the vehicles causing even more damage as the ground had been snowy and wet.

Chair of the grassroots club's charitable trust Darren Richmond said the vandalism was "incredibly disrespectful", adding: "It's a massive shame for the kids more than anything."

The club estimated it would take about £2,000 in specialist material and labour costs to fix it.

The community club for children and adults was founded in 2024, with the charitable foundation also offering education provision through sport.

Mr Richmond said he had gone to check the pitch on Friday before the weekend's game and found it to be "carnage".

"There are a lot of marks all over the pitches as they've been whizzing around," he said.

He said the depth of the rivets also presented a safety risk.

"It's made the pitch completely unplayable," Mr Richmond said.

The community football pitch was restored earlier this year

Mr Richmond said it was "utterly heartbreaking" for the team which had spent a lot of time, money and effort in fixing up the grounds.

"I've put thousands of hours in personally getting the pitch into the playable condition it is," he said.

"I don't know how on earth we're going to raise that money, so we're in serious danger now of just completely folding all together."

Northumbria Police said it was investigating reports of criminal damage at the Ravensworth Park playing fields.

The force said the vehicles, believed to be quad bikes, had driven across the grass sometime between 21:00 GMT on 19 November and 16:00 on 21 November.