A GANG of young vandals broke into Malmesbury Vics Football Club, sprayed white paint on the pitch, rode bicycles all over it, turned on the outside water meter tap and had an impromptu feast of stolen hot-dogs.

Their handiwork meant that volunteers were forced to spend several hours rolling and cleaning the pitch in preparation for the weekend’s games at the club’s Flying Monk ground.

“It’s more mischief than criminality. We’re not talking about the crime of the century. And we are not talking about hundreds of pounds worth of damage,” said club secretary Julie Exton.

“But it’s just the sort of thing you don’t want. We wouldn’t go down the route of criminal proceedings but we’d like to find out who was responsible and make them clear up some of the mess.”

Mrs Exton is convinced that it was youngsters who, on the night of Sunday, November 23, forced open the door of a storage shed at Malmesbury Victoria FC.

They stole and consumed five tins of hotdogs and threw the cans onto the pitch, found an aerosol of white paint normally used to help mark-out the pitch and sprayed it all over the field of play as well the walls and doors of buildings.

They also turned on an outside water tap, connected to a metre, which was left on for several hours, drenching the Wiltshire Premier League club’s pitch.

They wound up their night-time escapade by riding all over the pitch, further churning it up.

“We didn’t have to postpone any games but it was a bit clumpy out there,” said Mrs Exton.

“As the tap was connected to the meter, obviously that’s going to cost us. This has meant a lot of hard work for people at the club who are all volunteers. It’s something we could certainly have done without.”

Mrs Exton is now appealing to parents who may have noticed white paint on their children’s clothes, shoes or bicycle wheels.

“They made an awful lot of mess with the aerosol. I would imagine they would have got paint over themselves," she said.

“If any parents have noticed white paint over their children’s shoes on the days following this then perhaps they could ask them how it got there.”

Mrs Exton, a Malmesbury town councillor, would be pleased to hear from parents who discovered that any of their children were the culprits.

“It would be good if they came forward and removed some of the paint. If they had to clear up their mess then perhaps they would think twice about doing something like this again,” she said.

Sergeant Martin Alvis, of Malmesbury Police, appealed for those responsible to come forward. He said the club and police would be pleased to sort out the situation “without formal sanctions".

“Malmesbury is as good as you make it. There’s nothing funny, exciting or amusing about this behaviour. But there’s an opportunity to make good the wrongdoing,” he said.

Anyone with information on incident is asked to call 101 or contact a local police officer.