VANDALS have put the future of a Littleport football club in jeopardy by continuously skidding cars across its pitch, rendering it unplayable. Mick McCaffrey, manager of The Vine, said: These mindless thugs are doing their best to wreck everything that w

VANDALS have put the future of a Littleport football club in jeopardy by continuously skidding cars across its pitch, rendering it unplayable.

Mick McCaffrey, manager of The Vine, said: "These mindless thugs are doing their best to wreck everything that we're trying to achieve. The pitch is completely ruined and will never be played on again."

Police have been notified of the incident, which took place last Thursday (February 22) at around 10.30pm, at The Vine's pitch at Littleport Community School. No arrests have been made.

The Vine has used the school pitch for the past eight seasons. They played Saturday's match on another pitch at the school, but this will be unavailable in the future because it is used by a Sunday team. They will also be unable to use their usual changing facilities, due the school being moved.

Mr McCaffrey said: "We've been in touch with the Cambs FA and they've told us that we must have changing facilities and we can not exist without them. They've just basically told us to sort it all out ourselves. We may face fines if we can't play matches, and we simply won't be able to pay them. We get by on the guys paying subs every week.

"It's incredibly frustrating because both of our teams have been playing very well."

The Vine are fifth in the Cambridgeshire Division BIS 3B, six points adrift of the leaders with a game in hand and their reserve team is one point behind the leaders of the BIS 5B, in third place, and in the semi-final of the Lower Junior Cup.

Mr McCaffrey said: "We are now looking for a pitch to play on from week to week. We've looked into the possibility of playing the rest of our home games away, but nearly every club in our league has at least two teams so it's just not practical.

"We're hoping to use a pitch at Littleport Leisure Centre on Saturday, but I doubt this could become our regular home as three other teams play there."

- Anyone that feels they can help The Vine with a pitch and changing facilities, either on a temporary or long-term basis, should contact Mr McCaffrey on 07866 492168, or Dave Spencer on 07831 842632.

Anyone with information about the incident should call Cambridgeshire Police on 0845 4564564 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 55511.