The North Kent Sunday League is introducing 14 new teams next season – but chairman Graham East believes a lack of pitches is hindering any future growth.

Building developments on existing fields and a growing trend for youth football to be played on Sunday mornings mean the availability of pitches is stretched to capacity.

Mr East said: "The league is in dire need of more sports fields. It’s one hell of a problem, and any further expansion to the league is being limited because of the lack of football pitches.

"We have lost a lot of pitches over the years, especially school pitches. Although we can take more teams, where do they play?

"We are at maximum capacity in the Gravesend and Dartford area and we are having to beg and borrow pitches.

"There have been developments where we have been promised pitches and they haven’t materialised. It is also a problem for us where youth football is now becoming more Sunday morning-orientated."

Those games are now squeezing the league’s ability to find pitches and referees for their traditional morning kick-off times.

At present pitches are hired from Gravesham, Darenth and Swanscombe councils, while other matches are played on private grounds or at schools.

For the new season there will be 65 clubs playing in the league, up from 51 at the end of last season, bucking the trend in grass-roots football. The Gravesend Saturday League is going in the opposite direction, which saddened Mr East.

He said: "It’s a great shame. Saturday football has been in decline for a number of years. They could be down to one division next season, and I don’t know if they can recover from that.

"There are a lot of leagues in the pyramid system and step 6 has recently been introduced. It means more teams and players are needed and it’s the bottom league who suffers."

Highlighting their own league’s success, Mr East said: "We like to think we are running things right.

"We are hard on discipline and that means people have confidence to play. We are also introducing roll-on, roll-off substitutions, and we see that as a real positive."