OFFICIALS of Guiseley Football Club turned up on Saturday to find a trail of damage with six double glazed windows in the clubhouse they share with Guiseley Cricket Club smashed.

Volunteer workers arriving at the club on Saturday morning found a number of benches in the cricket ground had been overturned and windows had been smashed as well as signs ripped off the cricket scorebox.

It appeared that a bench had been used to smash some of the windows while a metal stake used for holding ropes round the cricket square had also been used along with a large stone.

Club volunteers were faced with a mountain of broken glass to clear.

They also had to erect tarpaulins over blood stains found on the windows to protect them for when the police forensic team arrived.

A flag from the nearby Benfield Ford garage was also found strewn among the debris as well as a glass from another drinking establishment.

The damage is estimated at thousands of pounds.

Fortunately the reserve team's Lancashire League football match that day had been called off by their opponents Bamber Bridge who were unable to field a team.

Reserve team secretary Rachel O'Connor, one of the first on the scene, said: "It was like a scene from Beirut with glass everywhere. The windows looked as if they had been blown out by a bomb blast."

"This is just mindless vandalism, there was no attempt at burglary. It is just a good job our match had been cancelled because we would not have been able to use the clubhouse."

The clubhouse is used by both the football and cricket teams playing host to hundreds of players, young and old, throughout the year.

The football club also hosts the local Wharfedale FA cup finals and the Wharfedale FA representative matches while the cricket ground was used for this year's Airedale and Wharfedale League Waddilove Cup final.

The club is also a popular venue for private parties and hosts the fortnightly meetings of the Yeadon-Guiseley Motor Club.

Football Club Chairman Phil Rogerson said: "This follows hard on the heels of a vast amount of damage a couple of months ago when the cricket club sightscreens were smashed to smithereens and we had 25 panels kicked off our perimeter fence as well as our goalposts damaged. It just makes you wonder if we are being targeted by a certain group."

Mr Rogerson added: "Both clubs put in a lot of effort in providing facilities and sport for many local people and sometimes it just makes you wonder why we bother.

"This damage is just so pointless and unnecessary. I don't understand what people get out of it. It is a huge amount of damage for so little purpose.

"Our insurance premiums will go up and it will cost us a lot of money at the end of the day, money sports clubs just don't have to fritter away on someone else's mindless pleasure.

"Presumably these people were drunk or drugged up but what they obviously consider fun causes a lot of heartache for our volunteer workers both on the cricket and football sides of the club."