A gardener forced to abandon his Black Country allotment after 20 years took revenge on his golf club landlords – by spraying weedkiller on the green.

Anthony Wain faces jail today after admitting causing up to £10,000 damage at Bloxwich Golf Course.

The attack was revenge for a 11,000 per cent rent increase. 

The 45-year-old said the Fishley Lane Allotments he has tended to since they opened in 1977 were “his life”, but that he now regretted taking the law into his own hands.

A row kicked off after the 11-plot allotment site, which is owned by the golf club, was sent a letter suggesting a combined rent of £10 would rise to £1,100 per year and that gardeners would have to remove all but one of the many sheds on the site.

While admitting they are considering using the land as a “turf nursery”, bosses at the golf club said the proposed price increase would bring them in line with other nearby allotments.

But it infuriated Wain, of nearby Bamford Close, who took a bottle of weedkiller and desecrated nine of 16 greens on September 27.

After his moment of madness, he walked into the club headquarters in Stafford Road and admitted he was to blame.

Wain, who has now left his plot, said he was devastated. “It’s broken my heart to be honest,” he said.

“I handed myself in because I regretted what I’d done. But this place is like a second home to me and I spent all day almost every day here until all this happened. It’s turned my life upside down.

“They say they were just starting negotiations, but even if we could afford the increase, there’s no way we could carry on with just one shed between us.”

 Wain has pleaded guilty and was being sentenced by Walsall Magistrates today.