THE chairman of a sports club branded the people who broke children’s trophies, TVs and graffitied the walls of a sports hall as ‘mindless vandals.’

Mike Fudge, who is also chairman of the Lytchett and Upton Red Triangle Football Club, which is based at the hall at the recreation ground on the High Street, was told about the damage on Sunday morning.

He said: “We turned up to graffiti on the walls including the A for anarchy logo and the USSR symbol. Trophies had been broken or stolen and our TVs on the walls which we use for advertising to the parents had been smashed with cricket bats.

“They got glasses from behind the bar and took them outside to effectively ‘play cricket’ with them and they took all of our first aid kits. It was just mindless vandalism.

“We have about 300 to 350 kids that use the hall every week. I’ve been at the club for six years and we’ve never had a big problem with vandalism, apart from the odd bit of graffiti on the outside walls.”

Mr Fudge said that the vandals also took gas cannisters from behind the bar, which he alleges they used along with the first aid kits to attempt to set fire to some swings in a nearby park.

However, he added they had been inundated with offers of help from the public to install CCTV in the hall and clean up the venue into a ‘usable’ state.

Alan Cottman, who serves on Lytchett Matravers Parish Council and is a committee member of the sports club, said: “What has been done to the hall and play park is shocking.

“They took a cabinet from the sports club and smashed it over the play park, meaning that there were shards of glass everywhere, and that’s the one that gets to me as they were intentionally trying to hurt the children who use that area.”

A spokesperson for Dorset Police said they were contacted just before 4am on Sunday, June 26 with reports of a fire at a play park on the High Street. Officers were not sent as the fire was not started deliberately.

They added they were called with reports of a burglary at the sports hall nearby which occurred sometime between 9.30pm on Saturday, June 25 and 6am on Sunday, June 26.

“Nothing was stolen, but a significant amount of damage was caused to the property,” they said.