GUN-TOTING yobs are targeting a much-valued Weymouth sports club.

Airgun vandals have attacked facilities at Weymouth and Portland Rugby Club twice in as many months, smashing floodlights.

As the referee checked out the pitch, he found the glass of a floodlight had been smashed, leaving glass and gold-coloured pellets on the pitch.

Club bosses say the grounds, off Monmouth Avenue in Weymouth, were hit before in a similar attack in August.

In total, two floodlights are not working and Dorset Police are investigating. The glass panes cost £500 each to replace, meaning the club will now need to raise £1,000 to replace them.

Organisers have criticised the vandals.

Club secretary Chris Davis said: “It’s mindless and pointless.

“It’s annoying when they do it because it’s not them that suffer – it never is. It’s always someone else.”

He added that the £1,000 to repair the flood lights was money they ‘would be spending on community rugby’.

The club sees the senior teams train on a Tuesday and Thursday, while Wednesday is the day for the boys and girls youth teams. The youngsters use the pitch hit by vandals, and although it is still usable, with the longer winter nights drawing in, the broken flood lights limit the amount of space available for the teams to train on.

Club chairman Ian McMillan said that instead of vandalising the club if they had nothing to do in the evenings, the perpetrators should come down and join them at training.

He said: “Come down and join the club and be part of the community.”

A spokesman for Dorset Police said they were appealing for witnesses and anyone with information to come forward.

She said they had received a report of criminal damage at Weymouth and Portland Rugby Club in Weymouth, adding: “The incident is thought to have occurred between 8pm on Thursday and 12noon on Saturday.

“The glass casing of the floodlights has been broken.”

Anyone with information should call Dorset Police on 101 and quote crime number C-14-D-40533.