A CORNISH football club were left frustrated at the weekend after being forced to cancel their first competitive fixture on a brand-new pitch – because 200 sheep had left it covered in droppings.

St Neot AFC, who play in Division Four East of the St Piran League, had been due to host Looe Town 2nds on Saturday in what was meant to be a milestone moment for the club. The team had spent four years searching for a suitable home ground before finally securing a pitch on the edge of Mount, a neighbouring village.

But on Friday evening, less than 24 hours before the 2pm kick-off, chairman Matt Thornhill arrived to make final checks and was met with a surreal sight: a field full of sheep happily grazing on the turf. By the time the flock had been removed, the grass was left coated in what Thornhill described as “kilos” of mess.

“It was supposed to be our big day,” said Matt. “We’d been preparing for our first competitive game on our new pitch, something that has taken years to arrange. Then we turned up on Friday and there were around 200 sheep roaming all over it. Unfortunately, they’d all done their business too.”

He added, only half-jokingly: “We looked it up online – apparently a sheep produces about two kilos of muck a day. Times that by 200 and you can imagine what we were dealing with.”

The animals are believed to have pushed under a fence from a neighbouring field where they are normally kept. Although the club had previously used an electric fence to protect the ground, the livestock seemed to prefer the fresher grass of the football pitch.

With health and safety concerns in mind, including the obvious risk of players falling or sliding in the droppings, St Neot contacted the Cornwall FA. But even the county’s football administrators were stumped. “They didn’t really know what to suggest,” Thornhill admitted. “In the end, there was no choice but to call the game off.”

The decision came as a major disappointment for the club, which had hosted only a low-key charity friendly earlier this month to test the facilities. Saturday’s fixture would have been the first official competitive contest at the ground.

Instead, Matt and several players spent the weekend armed with rakes and spades, attempting to clear the worst of the mess while simultaneously trying to re-mark the pitch lines.

"We've been down there all day Saturday and we're still cleaning s*** off the pitch,” added Matt.

Despite the setback, the club are determined to be ready for their next outing. St Neot AFC are scheduled to face Gerran & St Mawes United Reserves in the second round of the Percy Stephens Cup this Saturday, again at 2pm.

Matt is hopeful the surface will finally be fit for play – and that the sheep will stay away.

“We can’t think of anything like this having happened before,” he said. “It couldn’t be any more rural, but there's health and safety implications about rolling around in sheep dung, so we had to cancel the match.”