BEMUSED players were forced to abandon their cricket match on Saturday evening after a runaway bull stormed the playing field and refused to leave.

The North East Premier League fixture at Burnopfield Cricket Club near Newcastle was called off despite efforts to remove the animal from the ground.

Martin Oswell, director of the Tyneside club, said the young bull, probably weighing around 800kg, had escaped from a farm and travelled about a mile to the playing field where it arrived at around 3pm.

“We couldn’t get rid of it,” Oswell said.

“There was no chance that the game was going to restart before the cut-off time.

“At first it was quite novel, it was quite funny — but we never thought it was going to impact on our game being abandoned.”

The bull’s owner drove a cow to the cricket club in an effort to entice the animal off the field but to no avail, Oswell added.

“The farmer who owns the bull arrived at the ground and tried at first to sort of cajole it and get it into a pen, but it failed,” he said.

“The bull was very frightened — it was spooked.”

Safety concerns quickly arose as the bull could be seen charging at players, and farmers who attempted to recapture it.

“Two of the farmers tried to stop the bull and it actually hit one of them,” Oswell said.

“He was OK but I mean the beast probably weighed about 800kg.

“It was a juvenile bull, incredibly fit, athletic — quite frankly, it was quite dangerous.”

Police were eventually called to the scene before the bull left “of its own accord”, Oswell said.