Cricket pavilion torched after row

A cricket pavilion has been burnt to the ground following a confrontation between members of Hatch End Cricket Club and a mob of teenagers. The incident took place on Saturday at Shaftesbury Playing Fields near Harrow in North West London, and caused the match against Old Camdenians CC to be abandoned.

"There were lots of youngsters hanging around the park," a Hatch End player told The Harrow Observer. "They were really young - 14 or 15 - and they were drunk. They started to nick the boundary flags and we went over to them because of the disruption. It just escalated. It wasn't a brawl, just pushing and shoving. No-one got hurt."

According to the newspaper, the incident escalated after the match had been abandoned midway through the afternoon. As the players returned to the pavilion, the youths gathered friends and even parents for a tense showdown.

"Lots of people came down - 50 of them - and they came with lots of weapons: poles, sticks, logs and bricks. They came into the clubhouse causing aggravation and threw a couple of cricket balls, but didn't hit anyone because they knew the police were coming."

It took four police officers to separate the two groups, but according to Hatch End officials, the police escorted the cricketers off the site by 7pm, but chose not to move the teenagers. Within an hour, the pavilion was on fire.

"It's the same kids because they didn't leave the park," said the player. "The firemen are saying the fire started from the inside so the youths must have broken in."

Graham Wild, a Hatch End CC committee member, told the newspaper: "There was a group of cricketers trying to defend the clubhouse - it was a siege mentality."