Blackburn football club's lawn mower torched, with vandals returning weeks later to steal engine

Just before Christmas, the lawn mower used to maintain the pitches at Poppy Mai FC in Fishmoor Drive was vandalised and torched.

Club officials were planning to sell the machine to purchase a new lawn mower, and following the damage, were left with no option but to dip into club funds to buy a new one, without reaping anything in return.

The incident was reported to the police, but earlier this week, just before the damaged lawn mower was due to be collected for scrap, vandals returned to the site and stole the engine.

Club secretary, Linda Taylor, said the vandalism occurred around the same time a derelict property on Fishmoor Drive was torched, resulting in three fire crews attending the incident to tackle the blaze.

Ms Taylor, who provided photos of the vandalism said: "As you can see from the photos, there's extreme damage.

"This machine turned out to be a little temperamental and it was scheduled to be sold to recoup some funds, but when it was damaged we had no option but to purchase another machine right away.

"Someone from the Football Foundation said we could apply for funding for a new machine, but we couldn't leave the pitches over Christmas without making sure they were maintained so had to get one without funding and without money from the sale of the original."

Ms Taylor said that what happened to their mower wasn’t ideal, and believes the culprits were children, stating: "The kids up there have nothing to do.

"Because of this we would like to appeal to people to become a member of our club for £10 per month."

If anyone would like to join Poppy Mai FC, or support the club, they can visit the club's website: pitchero.com/clubs/poppymainorthfc

Anyone with information about the vandalism can contact the police on 101 quoting log number is 0575 of December 17 2021.