A SECOND incident of vandalism against a juniors’ football pitch has been branded ‘heartbreaking’ by the club.

The Jane Pit pitch near Mossbay, Workington, has been torn up for the second time in less than two months.

At around 9pm on Tuesday cars were rallied on the football field, which is used by Senhouse Juniors FC, their opponents in grassroots games and a Sunday League team.

Marie Money, secretary of Senhouse Juniors, described an eyewitness account from a resident on Mossbay Road, opposite the pitch.

She said: “There were two cars at around 9pm, they were going so fast they frightened her. They turned right onto the pitch. One of our coaches went down this morning and said it’s going to need resurfacing work.”

She added that it was especially upsetting to see the reckless behaviour towards a facility used by youngsters.

“As if the kids are not suffering enough with grassroots football on hold, now we face this again less than two months since the last time – it’s heart-breaking. Adults are a bit more resilient than children.

“We’re in another lockdown so football isn’t on for the time being, we were just looking forward to the beginning of December.”

The club hopes the pandemic will not delay the repair of their pitch given the amount of play they have already missed.

Marie said: “We haven’t been able to play on that pitch very much. They will be gutted if they come back and can’t play.”

There have been discussions around installing a perimeter fence to protect the Jane Pit pitch from further damage. “It’s something our club has spoken about. If Allerdale haven’t got the funding it’s something we could look at.”

Marie added that, after the lockdown, teams that use the pitch could take part in a joint fundraiser to cover the costs of the fence.

“We could all come together on it, but in these times that we’re in you can’t do a lot of fundraising.”

A spokesperson for Allerdale council said: “Through the Allerdale Local Focus Hub we continue to work with our partners to address issues such as anti-social behaviour across the borough and we encourage residents to report incidents to 101emails@cumbria.police.uk”