OFFICIALS at Ilminster Cricket Club are incensed after yobs vandalised a newly built sightscreen at the Recreation Ground over the Easter weekend.

The club had spent over £500 rebuilding the sightscreen in readiness for the 2011 season, but groundsman John Pallister was left furious when he found his hours of work building the sightscreen had been vandalised.

Club chairman Jim Sainsbury said: “It’s very sad that some simple-minded individual or group of people have gained some sort of gratification by smashing a large number of panels.

“They were no doubt fuelled with cheap alcohol, and as they probably have no ability to partake in sport they find mindless vandalism a form of recreation.

“I’d love to hear from anyone who has any knowledge of the culprits so they can be given suitable advice and the details passed on to the police.

“As the screens are partly plastic there should be some superb fingerprints left where the perpetrators climbed the structure.”

The attack is the latest in a string of vandalism incidents at the cricket club.

A number of windows have been smashed in the clubhouse which have had to be repaired at extra cost to the club when it is striving to raise money to improve its facilities.

Anyone with information is urged to call the police on 0845-4567000 or Crimestoppers on 0800-555111.