Cwm: Football field badly damaged by quad bikes

A pitch used by a junior football team has been badly damaged after a meet of bikes and vehicles was organised to feature in a music video.

Volunteers have set up a £3,500 fundraiser to repair the damage to Betterment Park in Cwm, Blaenau Gwent.

The rapper Dight 23 said he was not involved and was "shocked and disappointed" at the behaviour.

Gwent Police said they are making inquiries to identify those responsible.

Police were called to the field on Sunday after reports of damage being caused to the football pitch by people on off-road bikes.

• Vandalised pitch repair may cost tens of thousands

• Junior games cancelled after bikers wreck pitches

Alex Price, of RTB Ebbw Vale Junior FC, said the club was devastated.

"The area is a skatepark and a park. It's for kids. Why would you target an area which is specifically for children to use and enjoy?

"They've not only destroyed the pitch, all the grass around the skatepark is destroyed as well so they've just completely ruined the whole area and it just spoils it for the children.

"It's not fair because Ebbw Vale is a quite rundown area and there isn't a lot as it is for the children. That's why it's so important to have these grassroots clubs for these kids to have somewhere to spend their time and to have somewhere to look forward to."

Alex Price said photos began circulating online of damage being caused to the pitch

She said volunteers maintain the field which is rented from the council.

"They work really hard to get the pitch to where it is today. To see that be destroyed so quickly, it was really disheartening."

Ms Price explained the pitch would have to be re-turfed and so the weekend's football matches have had to be rearranged.

"A lot of our income is from selling teas and coffees at our home matches which we can't do now. We can't even recuperate that now because we can't use those facilities," she added.

Ms Price explained a dog walker had taken photos and videos of the incident and posted it online.

"A few young kids in the area had been telling their parents it was a rapper who was doing a music video and videos started circulating of the event that had taken place down there", she said.

Dight 23, a rapper from Cwm, posted an invitation on social media asking people with dirt bikes and vehicles to meet on 5 February to feature in his music video.

The Welsh rapper, who has 23 monthly listeners on Spotify and 341 followers on Facebook said when he and the photographer turned up at the location, the damage had already been done to the field.

Dight 23 said he has "seen the pitch in worse states after a rugby match"

"It ruined things for me in a way because by the time we got there, there was already a mess there," he said.

The rapper said the football pitch had been torn up by local kids on quad bikes.

Videos have circulated on social media showing dirt bikes and quad bikes kicking up the turf both on the football pitch and the green space next to the skate park.

The 23 year-old said: "They were all there for me, there's no denying that.

'I've been made to look the villain'

"But they've all got their own brains and they were all told to behave and I didn't tell them to do anything."

He has been criticised on social media, but he said: "They're targeting me because they don't have anyone else to target.

"It's been blown right out of proportion and I've been made to look like the villain."

He said he originally posted to meet at Cwm field, but deleted the post afterward.

However information "got out" and by the time he arrived there were about 30 young people on foot who had come to watch, as well as people with dirt bikes.

Dight 23 explained he and his friends moved location to shoot his music video and none of the footage is of Betterment Park.

The rapper also said he is happy to "donate a couple hundred pounds to help".