STOURPORT Cricket Club’s chairman has said getting the grounds ready for a game is a “nightmare” after £30,000 worth of maintenance equipment was stolen.

Burglars stole lawnmowers, a grass strimmer and a trailer in just 10 minutes on Wednesday last week at about 5am.

The club, in Harold Davies Drive, hosts Worcestershire county games and prides itself on the standard of its grounds.

Chairman Andy Platt, of Kidderminster said: “It’s took us many years to get the grounds to the level that we’ve got, now it’s all gone in one night.

“The wicket is the best part of our club, that’s why people want to play at our place. We had a county under 13s game at the weekend, it was a nightmare for the groundsmen without all our equipment.

“We’ve got two county games next weekend, it’s horrendous. They’ll still go ahead. Our groundsmen are just begging, borrowing and stealing equipment to get it as near to the standard as we’d like them to be. We wouldn’t let the county down.”

CCTV footage has been viewed by West Mercia Police which shows that the thieves drove a black four-wheel drive vehicle along a riverside footpath after breaking a padlock off a gate belonging to Stourport Swifts Football Club.

They drove across a rugby pitch to a storage shed at the cricket club where it is believed one of the offenders was already waiting with the equipment piled on the club’s trailer.

The trailer has a green sign saying Grass Roots Cricket on the side and a Channel Four logo.

Mr Platt said the club will have to put plans to develop its youth section on hold to fund replacement ground maintenance equipment.

He added: “The insurance will cover a certain amount but they don’t replace old equipment with new.

“That machinery means more to us as it was. We’ve got to find time and money to fund replacements quite quickly. The finances are going to have to go towards that.

“We’re right in the middle of the season. I’d like to wring their necks. We’ve only just put in security cameras and they obviously knew how to avoid them.”

Witnesses or anyone with information should call PC Halford on the non-emergency number 101, quoting incident reference 114-S-240713, or call Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.