A curfew is set to be enforced at a city cricket ground in a bid to stump hordes of hooligans who have targeted it.
New legislation enables police to seek a curfew at Weoley Hill Cricket Club - the target of constant vandalism for the past ten years.
The club has suffered concrete blocks being hurled on to the pitch, an attempted arson and break-ins.
Two geese were also found with their necks wrung and their heads pulled off.
The committee has just spent £70,000 rebuilding the clubhouse, but members fear it may not even last the season. They claim that landowners Bournville Village Trust have made the situation worse by taking down a fence alongside the ground in Shenley Fields Road. Club spokesman Mark Crayton said: "When we have had problems with youths, the police, although sympathetic, are often too busy to attend.
"We feel we need a lot more support if the club is to continue. So we have written to the chief constable's office highlighting the problems.
"Only recently members who were working on the clubhouse were confronted with a crowd of drunken youths only aged between 13 and 15 who started pulling down posts. There is a real danger that one of the club members might snap soon."
Sgt Keith Halliday, of Bournville Lane police station, said: "Under new legislation we are hoping to get a curfew up and running between the hours of 9pm and 6am at the ground which we hope will solve this problem.
Peter Roach, chief executive of Bournville Village Trust, said: "We sympathise with the problems the club has had and we have contributed ten per cent towards the cost of the clubhouse project."
* Are curfews the right way to tackle young hooligans? Send YOUR views to The Editor, Evening Mail, PO Box 78, Weaman Street, Birmingham, B4 6AY, or eveningmail@mrn.co.uk, or log on to www.icBirmingham.co.uk
