A SCOTS football club has been forced to stop games mid-way and almost cancel matches – because of the excessive amount of dog poo on the pitch.
FC Claypotts, an amateur team in Dundee, has their games at constant risk of cancellation because of the mess left by dog owners.
There are two dog waste bins around Claypotts Park, but club manager Callum Ogilvie has to spend time trawling the pitch to pick up excrement.
And he says that the situation has gotten so bad, players come off the pitch “covered in the stuff”.
Mr Ogilvie, 47, who founded the club 14 years ago, said: “I do try to pick up all the poo before the game starts, but there are times when we have to stop midway through as I’ve missed a couple of pieces.
“We’ve had the referee stop a match and tell us to clean up some of it that we had missed before the game.
“It is particularly bad around the goal posts – that is where the dogs pee and I think the smell attracts other dogs to the area.
“I think foxes might get involved too. The smell is horrible, it actually goes straight for my stomach and I start retching.”
The situation got so bad that he put up a sign reminding people to clean up after their dogs, but it was burnt down shortly afterwards.
“ I spoke to a council worker who works on the pitch asking if we might be able to get a new one,” he said.
“That was a few months ago and nothing has been done about it yet.
“Someone needs to pick it up though, otherwise our boys wouldn’t be able to get a game.
“If it continues then I will need to start cancelling games.”
Mr Ogilvie added that some locals don’t even carry around the bags necessary to clean up the poo.
He continued: “I have seen owners doing it right in front of me. When I’ve asked if they’d pick it up they tell me they don’t have any bags, so I just get some of mine out and give them to them.
“But even bags don’t work sometimes – some of the more watery poos you can’t even get to.”
The excrement has been a problem that FC Claypotts have had to deal with since they were founded, but recently it has gotten considerably worse.
Mr Ogilvie said: “It’s getting completely out of hand, there are times when our football strips would be covered in the stuff.
“There are children’s pitches right next door to ours that have to go through a similar situation.
“There should be somebody employed that goes around cleaning up the poo. It’s a problem all over that should be dealt with.”
The excessive dog fouling at Claypotts Park comes shortly after calls were made for a dog poo vacuum to be brought to Dundee to step up the war on people who don’t clean up after their pets.
