Arbourthorne residents have filed multiple police reports after a group of men have allegedly “threatened and abused” the community for months.
The men have most notably vandalised Earl Marshall JFC and Soccer School’s home pitch, putting the club under financial duress after having to make multiple match cancellations for their grassroots under-11s team.
Dale Pask, who runs the children’s football club with his father, said: “I’d like to get MPs, police and council together, because there’s a lot of book passing at the moment.
“To be fair, at least the police told us the truth, and said that there’s not much they can do at the moment.
But we’re running out of ideas, and something needs to be done.”
The group of men who recklessly ride their motorbikes, quad bikes, and buggies around the football pitch, have placed the young and disabled footballers at risk.
Mr Pask said: “We have kids with ADHD, cystic fibrosis, and from all sorts of backgrounds.
I asked them if they could go further away until the kids were gone, and they’d come back with balaclavas and giving me the finger.”
Although their acts of vandalism have drawn regional attention, the locals have also been targeted by the group.
Mr Pask said: “There’ll be people just walking their dogs, and they’ll get threatened and abused by these men.
It’s scary because these are middle aged men, with some kids, who are probably their own.”
Mr Pask and other Arbourthorne locals have contacted both the police and Sheffield City Council on multiple occasions for help on the matter, but nothing has been done to stop the men.
Mr Pask said: “The Star and the BBC have gotten more out of the council than we have, because they’ve been told by the council that they’re going to put fencing up around the pitch and get it sorted, but we’ve not heard a thing from them.”
Earl Marshall JFC and Soccer School have started a petition urging the council to install protective fencing, which is close to reaching its goal of 500 signatures.