"It's absolutely heartbreaking" - Illingworth Sports Club wrecked after vandals break-in to steal copper pipes

The club was targeted on Thursday last week, when they were broken into and had the copper pipework ripped out from their changing rooms and attics, causing substantial water damage.

Andy Greenway, club chairman, said: "We're absolutely gutted. We support the community with grassroots football and rugby, we're run by volunteers so no-one takes anything out of it and any money we make, we put back into the club.

"We try to do little frundraisers to help run the club, we don't really get any money from anywhere else.

"Then this happens, it's absolutely heartbreaking. They've absolutely wrecked the place.

"We've had some new boilers fitted for the showers and they've taken all the copper, completely wrecked the boiler room.

"And they've stripped all the pipes out of the loft, and it's just like a waterfall in the changing rooms. It's a right mess."

Despite the incident, Andy has vowed that the club will bounce back.

"The club's been there for nearly 60 years and we'll carry on going," he said.

"We'll repair what needs repairing and try to recoup some money to get the repairs done, and we'll carry on.

"We won't have any juniors games over the next six weeks because of the school holidays so at least that gives us a chance to get things working again.

"But we'll keep going, that's what we do."

In a statement, West Yorkshire Police said: "Police received a report at 5.42pm on Thursday of a burglary at Illingworth Sports and Social Club which was reported to have happened the day before.

"It was reported that copper piping and bottles of alcohol were stolen.

"If anyone has any information that could assist police enquiries into this incident, they are asked to contact police via Live Chat online or by calling 101, quoting crime reference 13240389168."

A fundraiser has been set-up for the club, which can be viewed at https://www.gofundme.com/f/ycbqm-help-desperately-needed?cdn-cache=0.