Tring football club praise teenagers who cleaned up rubbish left at the ground by trespassers

A football club in Tring has praised two teenagers who cleaned up rubbish left by trespassers at their ground.

Tring Corinthians FC organised a meeting with the two 17-year-olds - Lauren Wallis and Olly Lane - who had tidied and cleaned up rubbish that had been left at the club's ground.

Trespassers have been using the site during lockdown, and since the start of June the club has collected over 20 bin bags of rubbish, and the club issued a plea online for those responsible to stop.

In a statement, the club said: "During lockdown our football ground has been subject to trespassing, vandalism, littering and abuse. The club would like to put on record that we have about now had enough. Every night our dugouts have been subjected to vandalism and rubbish.

"We have found copious amounts of drugs from cannabis to cocaine within the dugouts, broken glass, spliffs and a ridiculous amount of trash. We have had enough now. When approached by club officials, we have received unlimited abuse and threatening behaviour.

"This is half of the amount of rubbish we have collected from the dugouts and pitch during lockdown. This cannot continue.

"These youths (male and female) are aged between 16-21. Police have been informed but this still continues daily. We fear we cannot make improvements to the ground until this matter is dealt with.

"This is private property and anyone found within the ground out of hours is breaking the law. We are a club with big ambitions but these incidents are incredibly worrying and very time consuming."

On Sunday, two members of the club's management team went to ground and found the dugouts in impeccable condition. Rubbish removed, floor swept, seats cleaned.

There was a note which read: “To the owner, was disgusted by your FB post so me and my boyfriend did the best job we could to clean up. Such a shame people are like that."

The club managed to track down the two teenagers responsible and met them on Tuesday night to thank them for what they did, they gave them flowers and a restaurant voucher.

Jamie Roberts, joint first team manager, said: "We managed to get in touch with those responsible for this and it was a local young couple.

"For all the bad in the world, there is so much more good!

"We met up with the couple before training on Tuesday and we gave them some flowers and vouchers to a restaurant as a thank you from the club.

"They didn't have to do that and we really appreciate it.

"I've been told that the rubbish and people trespassing has been a problem for quite a few years but has got worse recently, we were having to clean up bags of rubbish and get things fixed pretty much every other day.

"It was very frustrating for us, it wasn't just the rubbish being left behind, the dugouts were being damaged as well and was costing the club money to fix.

"We're volunteers here and do not have the money to be spending on fixing these things all the time.

"We want to highlight of what these two young people have done, although should not have had to clean up the area, they did and we are very grateful.

"When I saw the note I was speechless. The area was spotless, they did a great job."

Hertfordshire Police is aware of the problems and are working with the club.

A spokesman for the force said: "We are aware of the issues at the location and have been working with the club to come up with a long term solution.

"We have a number of covert and overt tactics currently in place to help us identify any suspects, including increased police patrols in the area.

"This kind of behaviour is simply unacceptable and anyone found to be involved will be dealt with robustly.

"If you have any information which may assist us, please get in touch."

To report information to Hertfordshire Police call 101.