A SCHOOLBOY died when a damaged goalpost he was swinging on during a football match fell over and hit his head.

An inquest heard how 13-year-old Wayne Turner, of Brodick Road, Blackburn, and a large group of friends had sneaked on to the astroturf pitch through a hole in the fence at Shadsworth Leisure Centre last October to play football after the centre had closed for the day.

It was something the boys had done regularly for about two years and centre staff knew the pitches were used "out of hours" by many different young people who did not want to pay the hire fees.

But the inquest also heard that Blackburn Council, who operate the centre, and staff on site had been warned in a countywide appeal some months before from the Health and Safety Executive about the dangers of freestanding goalposts.

Mr Mark Cattriall, a safety inspector, told the inquest that he had written to all relevant authorities in Lancashire after a number of serious accidents all over the country where posts such as those at Shadsworth had not been secured to the floor or weighted enough to prevent them falling over. The inquest also heard that a teacher at a local school had reported, over a month before Wayne's accident, that a bar which ran across the back of the posts on the floor of the frame involved in this accident was missing.

Wayne's friend, Jeffrey Aldridge, 15, said Wayne, a pupil of Westcliffe Special School in Great Harwood, was playing in goals on the Sunday of the accident. Wayne started to swing on the crossbar of the nets and within a minute or two the metal frame of the goals had toppled over and hit him on the head.

Jeffrey said he and Wayne's elder brother, Warren, called for help from other footballers playing nearby and someone called an ambulance because Wayne was unconscious.

However, home office pathologist Dr John Rutherford, said Wayne's brain had swollen because of the injury to his head and he would have died within a matter of minutes, despite valiant efforts to save him by emergency crews at the scene.

After a jury returned a verdict of accidental death, coroner Andre Rebello said boys would be boys as far as playing around went and, hopefully, Wayne's death would not be in vain. He hoped a new, safe system for the use of freestanding goalposts in and around Blackburn would now be in operation.

Blackburn Council had earlier pleaded guilty in a court hearing based on the fact that no practical action had been taken to ensure the safety of the goalposts at the time of the accident. The council had been fined £12,000 with costs.

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