A football match was cancelled after angry wild boars invaded the pitch, leaving it covered in potholes. The hog hooligans squeezed though a gap in the fence at Soudley Recreation Ground in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, and dug up giant mounds with their snouts.
The new pitch was so badly damaged by the boars, who live in nearby woodland, that Soudley's match with Charfield on Saturday was cancelled.
The pitch underwent a £1,000 returfing and expansion last April, paid for by fundraising events such as discos.
Gloucestershire Football Association operations manager Chris Lucker said today: "This is the first time we've heard of anything like this.
Usually it's motorbikes or cars that tear up pitches, not boars.
There is funding available for the upkeep of pitches."
Club secretary Louise Stephens said members and players were "absolutely devastated" by the carnage that afternoon. She told the Western Daily Press: "A resident saw the pitch at 8.30am and phoned my husband to say we had to get down straight away. There is no way of playing on the pitch now."
It will take several months to get the pitch up to scratch. All matches have been postponed. After being hunted to near-extinction 300 years ago, wild boars have bred rapidly in recent decades after they were imported from Europe for meat.
Escapes from wildlife parks and farms increased in the 1990s as the captive numbers grew. In January this year, a wild boar broke into Ruardean Primary School, seven miles away from the Soudley pitch, and was shot dead in the playground after it became aggressive and stomped its feet.
There have been several instances of horse riders chased by charging boars, boars trashing private gardens and farms and of boars tearing dogs apart.
Farmers also fear the animals spread diseases like classical swine fever and foot and mouth.
It is estimated that there are over 1,000 boars in the UK and sightings have also been reported in east Somerset, Kent, East Sussex, west Dorset and Devon.
Forestry experts say the animals have little fear of people because they have not been hunted and have no natural predators.
A selective cull of boars was sanctioned in February this year by Biodiversity Minister Joan Ruddock.
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