Footballers team up for Rawmarsh litter pick

Rawmarsh St Joseph’s Youth Football Club teamed up with Rotherham Council and its team of volunteer litter-pickers to clean up Rosehill Park on Saturday.

The footballers decided to clean up Rawmarsh after a spate of fly-tipping around their ground on Back Lane.

And the team of around 40 volunteers had a busy two hours - filling 35 bags with litter including food wrappers, bottles and cans.

Organiser Shane Horne, who manages the under-12s side, said: “We have quite a lot of fly-tipping around our ground including tyres and a burnt-out car.

“Someone dumped a load of tyres and someone decided to set them on fire.

“It’s become a bit of a nuisance really so we thought we would clean the area up.

“We are trying to teach the kids about looking after their environment.”

Shane said fly-tipping had been a problem in Rawmarsh for at least 18 months.

He said the entrance to Rosehill Park, which attracted groups of young people, had more litter than anywhere else in the park.

Shane said the litter-pick turned up some unusual finds.

“There were some things you wouldn’t expect to find, like bikes and space hoppers,” he said.

“Whether the space hopper was there since 1972, I don’t know.”

Shane said he was planning another litter-pick around the football ground on Back Lane soon.

“We got decent weather and everybody had a bit of a good laugh about it,” he said.

“The local people who were walking dogs and using the park were asking us questions about what we were doing and saying how much better it looked.

“We felt like we were making a difference.”