A contractor's shoddy first attempt at drawing football pitch lines has gone viral, with the council responding by saying 'everyone has to start somewhere'.
Tom Payne tweeted Solihull Council on Wednesday with a series of four pictures showing the mess made on his local football field at Bluebell Drive in Birmingham, with the first image showing a corner flag that appeared to have been run over at a wide angle.
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Further pictures in the post, which has now been retweeted more than 1,000 times, show the halfway line wiggling off a straight path and the centre circle being far from a perfect curve.
Solihull Council admitted that it was a new employee who had been left to do half the pitch on their own before their colleague 'quickly realised it wasn't their forte' and promised the lines will be re-done.
One reply to the tweet jokingly suggested the contractors were also 'in charge of the offside lines for VAR'.
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Another commented with: "I'm going to sound like an old fogey now (which I probably am) but what happened to people giving a s*** about the work they do?"
In their reply to Tom's initial tweet, Solihull Council said: "Oof, that doesn't look good! We've contacted our contractors and suggested they might need to have a look at the state of these lines... Thanks for letting us know!"
Others weren't particularly impressed with the council's response and suggested they might need to change their contractors.
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One said: "Probably some passion and dedication to the job will do. Tarnish council contractors with the same brush with stuff like this. That's a p**s poor effort."
Another replied: "If they are genuine pictures, then the contractor should be taken off the job, it's near on impossible to get lines perfectly str8 without restringing or laser especially as pitch are not like carpets but that shows absolutely no care wotsoever [sic]".
Another replied, suggesting 'Villa fan done it, still p**sed up from last night' in reference to the team's League Cup semi-final triumph over Leicester City on Tuesday night (28 January).
A spokesperson for Solihull Council said: "This was the result of someone who had just been trained to use the equipment having their first go - turns out it's not as easy as you might think!
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"Their colleague left them to do half of the pitch while they did the other, then quickly realised it wasn't their forte! Everyone has to start somewhere...
"The lines were removed yesterday and are being redrawn this morning by our experienced contractors."
Topics: Football, Community, UK