North Leigh chairman Pete King has expressed his frustration at the chaos caused by the torrential rain to the Calor League Division 1 South & West club’s fixtures.

King, who has been at the helm for more than 20 years, says the bad weather means they haven’t played since last month when they recorded a 2-1 home win against Bishops Cleeve.

And it’s hitting the club in the pocket.

“I haven’t pulled a pint (in the clubhouse) since January 21,” said King.

“It’s affecting takings at the bar. Some clubs are able to keep their bar open all day, but we have to rely on the trade we get on a matchday.

“Ours is only open on matchdays I’m fed up with it. It’s very frustrating and demoralising.”

This week, just to add to their worries, Friday’s high winds caused one of the floodlights to spin around and face a field next to their Eynsham Park ground.

“Because the ground was so soft it meant that it was difficult to get equipment on it to fix the lights.”

King said the club had carried out extensive work on the drainage system over the years to solve the problem of waterlogged pitches.

He added: “We always have the drains done every year, but the volume of water has been so great that they haven’t been able to cope.

“The water level is so high that any extra rain makes it flood.

“Last year, the problem was snow, which meant we played hardly any games in January, so there’s always something happening.”

The club’s manager, Mark Gee says he and th erest of his coaching staff are finding it difficult to keep the players from getting bored.

He added: “We’ve tried various different things in training, but you can’t replicate actuallly playing games.

“Thankfully, we have been able to use a G3 pitch at Carterton to train on, so all the players are fully fit. It’s been like having pre-season over again.

North Leigh will face a packed fixture list just to deal with the backlog.

Gee said: “We’ve 17 to 18 players to pick from, so we can cope with three games a week.”