London 2012: Vandals daub graffiti on Jessica Ennis's golden post box in Sheffield

5 August: a red post box being painted gold in Sheffield to honour Jessica Ennis and her gold medal heptathlon victory. It has now been vandalised (David Higgens/PA Wire)

A vandal has attacked a postbox painted gold in Jessica Ennis's home city to celebrate her Olympic triumph.

Graffiti was daubed on the box in Barkers Pool in Sheffield city centre, which has already become a tourist attraction, within 24 hours of it being painted.

A new layer of gold has been applied by a Royal Mail engineer, a Sheffield City Council spokeswoman said.

Royal Mail said it did not know what the graffiti said as an engineer repaired the damage very quickly as "a point of pride".

A spokeswoman said: "We are extremely disappointed that someone has chosen to vandalise the gold postbox."

Crowds gathered in the city centre on Sunday to watch the first gold coat being applied, the day after Ennis won gold in the heptathlon.

The box outside the City Hall is overlooked by a giant 80ft poster of the Olympian on the front of the John Lewis building.

People stopped to take photographs as a team applied a coat of primer followed by four coats of gold.

It has since become a tourist attraction, with one man reportedly travelling all the way from London to see it.

Following the incident, a Twitter account claiming to be the post box tweeted a former Council Leader and the police asking for protection.

South Yorkshire Police later confirmed the graffiti said "Go Jess" in small writing and was removed shortly after it was found.