TINY footballers trying to improve their game in Blackbird Leys Park have called on local yobs to stop vandalising their goalposts.

The Under 10s team at Oxford Blackbirds Football Club have been blighted by a spate of thefts of and damage to their moveable plastic goals, which cost £160 each.

A group of teenagers were caught smashing up the 6ft x 8ft goalposts on Monday, May 30, and another set was stolen on Thursday, June 2.

Club chairman Stuart Parsons said: "About a month ago I caught some kids from City of Oxford College; I shouted and made them put the goals back in the lock-up.

"It was in the middle of the day, on their lunch break. I had a bit of a rare-up at them. Recently we have found more and more kids actually taking them out."

For the time being the goals are being locked away in a fenced-off area each night, rather than left out on the grass.

Mr Parsons said: "It's going to take up so much more of the managers' and the coaches' time to get ready for a session than they already give."

After both of the recent incidents the club posted angry messages on Facebook explaining what had happened. They were shared more than 18,000 times by residents.

Eventually the stolen goalposts were anonymously returned by a Leys resident who said they had seen it in a neighbour's garden.

One of the young people involved in the theft came to the park with his mother, who had seen the Facebook post, to apologise to Mr Parsons and the coaches.

Several other locals have come forward to sponsor the club so it can buy new goals, with Abingdon Town FC also offering to donate an unused set.

Mr Parsons said: "Social media is massive help. This has shown that there are good people; everyone expects Blackbird Leys to be full of criminals but it's not that way at all.

"It's just boredom. There's lots here for kids but not for teenagers; I don't know what they do during the evenings at half term.

"But they have got to remember that one day they are going to have children, and one day their children might want to play football."

About 100 youngsters from across the estate go to sessions with Blackbird Leys FC, with the Under-10s meeting twice a week. Older ones play nine-a-side with fixed goals.

Seven-year-old Richard Cahill, who has been training with the Blackbirds for two to three years, said: "They shouldn't be taking our goals.

"They are our responsibility and not theirs. They have to ask us to have them."

Fellow team member Finlay Delafield, also seven, added: "It's mean. Give us back our goals."