TRAVELLERS have set up home at the recently-closed Civil Service sports ground in York - just as residents predicted.

Four caravans moved on to the car park at the Boroughbridge Road site on Monday after its locked entrance was smashed open.

The former clubhouse was also broken into before the travellers arrived and the cricket score box set on fire by local youths.

Hundreds of sportsmen and women expressed shock and outrage after they were forced to vacate the 14-acre ground earlier this year because of dwindling numbers. Club members and nearby residents then predicted the ground would become an eyesore and a magnet for the travelling community.

Dennis Wray, 47, chairman of the York Civil Service Cricket Club, who played their last match on the ground during the summer, said he was "very upset".

"The ground is a total wreck already," he said.

"I'm bloody annoyed -- I had 20 good years on there.

"We said as soon as the teams left the travellers would move on, and that is the case."

But Ray Haskell, spokesman for the Civil Service Sports Council, which owns the land, said it was taking court action to get the travellers evicted.

"We understand it will take about a week to process," he said.

"I also understand someone has broken into the club building, so we're sending builders down there to secure it.

"We will also put in place an earth mound at the entrance once the travellers have gone, to stop it happening again."

A major housebuilder has signed an option agreement on the site, with a sale expected by the end of November. An elderly woman, whose house overlooks the sports ground, said residents feared the site could become overrun by travellers.

"I think it's absolutely disgusting that the site hasn't been kept open as a sports ground," she said.

"We were half expecting travellers to move on there and I think they will fill the field.

"It doesn't look good for tourists driving into York."

A female traveller on the site, who said they were from Ireland, told the Evening Press: "We're not stopping here long, we should be moving off within a few days."

A spokeswoman for City of York Council said: "The council can and will provide advice and support to land owners who have travellers on their land."

A major £7 million sports complex plan at Wigginton Road, Clifton Moor, to replace the Boroughbridge Road site was recently thrown out by planners as it was in the Green Belt.

Updated: 08:42 Wednesday, November 12, 2003