ANTI-SOCIAL behaviour at a Peebles football park has reached fever pitch raising fears that local players will be badly injured.

Peebles Rovers Football Club have now called for an urgent policing focus after discovering broken bottles and shards of glass on the park earlier this month.

As well as smashed beer and vodka bottles, there were also discarded clothes including female underwear.

In a last ditch attempt to blow the whistle on vandalism, Rovers committee member, John Gordon, made a plea at Peebles Community Council.

He appealed directly to attending police officers.

He said: “The state of the pitch due to shards of glass from smashed bottles is a disgrace.

"We as a committee have no jurisdiction over that pavilion but we will allow people to use it in the correct manner.

“On Saturday I went down with three other people and we were lifting shards of glass off the pitch. These players that are playing aren’t professionals, they’ve got their work to go to on a Monday. A sliding tackling on Saturday’s conditions would’ve been catastrophic and could’ve resulted in serious injuries.

“We found bottles of vodka, beer, discarded female underwear, jeans, deodorant cans and other items. We thought it being highlighted in the press that it would’ve stopped but it’s getting worse. The bin at the side of the pavilion, that’s been taken away as well so they can’t even throw stuff in the bin. We just want to highlight to the community council that this is still an ongoing problem.”

Acting Chairman of Peebles Community Council, Lawrie Hayworth, said the repeated vandalism raised the question of 'naming and shaming' the perpetrators.

He added: “One of the concerns expressed by the community council on behalf of the community has been to address the level of police resource in and around the town. I think there’s been a lot of work done and a significant increase, but to hear that you were faced with a situation that could’ve caused significant personal injury to amateur sports people in the town is clearly worrying.

“It is a difficulty, as a community council we do continue to seek to get as much resources as we can from Police Scotland direct and Borders Community Action Team. There has been a significant increase in policing, but it doesn’t seem to have wholly deterred the very small number of young people that are behaving in this way. One wonders at what point do you name and shame.

“I think the report we are about to receive by police will show a diminishment over the recent period because of the increased effort that’s been made by both Police Scotland and the Community Action Team.

"We will continue to seek to have as strong a police presence as is achievable within the town.

"We do repeatedly say that part of the resource allocation process is looking at the calls that have been made through to the service support centre at Bilston through the 101 system. If people don’t report incidents then it’s not captured as a problem.”

Given the club’s financial position, a Crowdfunder was suggested to raise money for CCTV.

John said: “We are looking into that but at the moment our main objective this year is to get the canteen hospitality hut secured and we were very kindly gifted an alarm system from a company in Edinburgh.

“With CCTV it’s a public place so there are laws and regulations around everything like that and we wouldn’t want to step on toes with sticking up cameras everywhere.”

A suggestion of the mobile CCTV cameras being installed at Whitehaugh Park was suggested by Tweeddale Councillor Robin Tatler and this measure was also backed by police.