A HOPPING mad giant kangaroo skipped to a league game yesterday to urge fans to kick cruelty out of football.

Campaigners yesterday joined Kylie the kangaroo at the main entrance of St James's Park, to call on Newcastle fans to boycott kangaroo leather football boots.

The Kick Cruelty out of Football campaign is being run by international animal charity Viva!

It follows Viva!'s expose of the kangaroo slaughter, which caused such an outcry that all major British supermarkets pulled kangaroo meat from their shelves.

Viva is now turning its attention to the kangaroo leather industry which, it claims, shares equal responsibility for this sickening massacre.

Newcastle Animal Rights Coalition spokeswoman Louise Stevenson said: "Kangaroo leather means a slow, agonising death for millions of kangaroos and joeys every year.

"We are calling on all British football players, whether premier division or Sunday league, to help end this butchery and boycott kangaroo leather boots."

Ms Stevenson said adult kangaroos were shot at night in the Outback, away from public scrutiny. They were usually hit in the throat or chest and dragged to the truck struggling and still conscious.

Ms Stevenson added: "Many will still be alive when their leg is slit open and a large hook inserted through it.

"They are hauled up onto the truck where they slowly die. Millions of joeys suffer a more grisly death when are pulled from their mother's pouch and clubbed to death."