FUNGUS has forced an Oxford football club to abandon its £800,000 new pitches and clubhouse.

Just a month after Hinksey Park unveiled its £60,000 turf to the world, Oxford City Council has condemned it.

Worst of all, the fungus seems to have thrived in damp soil – the exact problem the new turf was supposed to prevent.

Unhealthy brown patches spread across the grass which the council has now confirmed as monographella nivalis, commonly known as Fusarium.

Council parks officer Tina Mould, who made the diagnosis, told the club they should reschedule all matches and training for the foreseeable future while she gets a quote for chemically treating the whole field.

Club secretary Mick Conmy said: “We’re gutted.

“Nineteen teams have now got to have their fixtures moved. It is a huge logistical challenge and a real blow to the club.

“We are entirely run by volunteers so frustration like this puts people off. The worst thing is there are no definite plans to move back.”

The club has moved all its scheduled home matches to Sandy Lane in Blackbird Leys, but teams will still have to return goals, flags and equipment to Hinksey Park pavilion.

The new pitches were laid over the summer thanks to £32,500 from the Sporting England Protection of Playing Fields Fund and £25,000 from Oxford City Council.

Ms Mould told the club that wet weather had contributed to the spread of the fungus.

The news is doubly frustrating for the club because the whole point of the new turf and topsoil was to stop the pitch turning into a quagmire when it rained.

The pitch, used by the club’s hundreds of young players every week of the season, was salvaged in the 1980s out of mud and spoil from the former South Oxford gasworks and covered with a waterproof layer and turf.

Unfortunately, that surface offered no drainage. During the winter the club had to cancel up to half its matches because it got so muddy it was unusable.

The new layer of sandy loam soil beneath the grass was supposed to change all that. Mr Conmy said: “The lesson seems to be that you can’t fundamentally change nature.

“There is an impermeable barrier one metre below the surface so when it rains the water just stays in there.

“It’s no one’s fault, it’s just a shame.”

Oxford City Council leader Bob Price, who is also the ward councillor for Grandpont, said he was disappointed.

The devastating news comes after the club opened a new £750,000 pavilion in July 2014 – the first permanent home it ever had.

It had more members than ever before, and had just started its first ever girls’ team. Mr Conmy said: “It feels like the club is disintegrating, just like our pitch.”