REWARDS have been offered to try to rid Cross Hills Football Club of vandals.

A group of vandals, believed to be teenagers, have consistently targeted the club's modern changing room facilities, which were built in 1997 with the help of lottery funding and cost more than £60,000.

Now club chairman Barry Pearce has offered a £100 reward for the names of any of the vandals who are causing the damage.

He told the Herald: "This has been going on for a few months now. We've found evidence of cannabis use, and we've found bottles buried in the football pitch. It only needs one player to step on something like that, and they will do themselves a real injury."

Club secretary Paul Smith also hit out at the vandals.

He said: "We've been in touch with the police on quite a few occasions and they've gone down to check on the club as often as they can. But the vandalism has continued.

"We really want to try to stop this now, before it goes any further.

"There's been broken bottles and empty beer cans left around the grounds and someone has also tried to break into the kitchen area as well."

He added that graffiti had also been scribbled on the door to the changing room facilities several times and that advertising signs positioned around the grounds had also needed to be re-painted after being vandalised.

Mr Smith said: "We're wanting people to come forward and name who's doing this.

"This is private land, which we bought ourselves, but we have had to continually find funding for it."

He added the club had always tried to be progressive and act as a community facility. In the past the club has run a junior squad for local boys and hopes to set this up again in the future.

Mr Smith said: "We've also got a play area at the top behind the football field and we're trying to get an all-weather pitch so that anyone from the community can use it"

He added: "We're also always trying to entice players down and make everything here look attractive, but we keep getting these setbacks all the time."

Anyone who can offer information on the vandalism can contact Mr Pearce on 01535 635345 or Cross Hills Police on 01756 793377.