A 19-year-old man has been ordered to do unpaid work because of his role in the trashing of a junior football club's pitch. Kieron Mullan was involved in a gathering of quad bikes and dirt bikes that saw much of the grass at Betterment Park in Cwm chewed up by tyres.
RTB Ebbw Vale Junior Football Club – which hosts football for around 300 children aged five to 14 – said a match was played on the morning of February 5 and the pitch was locked up at about 12.30pm. That evening the club became aware of videos circulating on social media showing a gathering at the field with loud rap music blaring and youths tearing across grass on quad bikes. Club media officer Alex Price estimated there were around 40 youths and 10 vehicles at the scene with some doing "doughnuts and wheel spins".
The volunteer-run club estimated there was £3,500 worth of damage to the "destroyed" field, adding they were "devastated for our children as they now don't have a pitch to play on and, being a grassroots club, we have zero funding". Local rapper Dight 23 had posted an online invitation for people to turn up at the field for his music video shoot that day, but he told WalesOnline those responsible for the damage were not part of his meet.
