WHILE Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger moan about their pampered players playing too many matches, non-league teams in the North-East are just desperate to play.

Waterlogged pitches have become the scourge of amateur football teams all over the region, as deluge after deluge means the only tackle they are likely to see on the pitch belongs to fishermen hoping to net a stray tiddler.

With hundreds of games being called off every weekend, amateur leagues are experiencing the sort of fixture backlog that would have the Football Association reaching for the smelling salts.

Years of financial neglect by local authorities has seen dilapidated playing fields getting steadily worse - a scandal aggravated by recent rains, which have left the region's non-league teams looking at Christmas fixtures for the first time in living memory.

John Topping, secretary of Durham County FA, which represents all amateur football in the county, poured even more dampeners on the situation.

He said: "Things are terrible at the moment. It is a mammoth problem. I've heard the rain is going to continue until next spring.

"Even when the rain eases off and you play on a slightly dodgy pitch, you then damage it for two or three matches after that. Things are so bad that we have got to play eight cup competitions this weekend - if it doesn't rain - when we were scheduled to have three.

"Somehow, all the games will have to be played by June 1 - they're not allowed to be played in the close season.

"By then, some players will be playing four, five or even six games a week."

Things are so bad that the traditional non-league Christmas break is likely to be used by desperate leagues to play postponed fixtures.

George Simpson, secretary of the Darlington Church and Friendly League, said: "For the first time in more than 20 years I am aiming to play over Christmas and the New Year.

"I have teams which have not played a league match since October 21.

"Not one ball was kicked last Saturday and it is going to be a crazy end to the season."

Darren Brooks, secretary of the 13-team Durham Alliance league, said: "Any kind of long-term funding would have solved this. But, because there is so little cash in the game at grassroots level, there are no decent facilities.

"Mind you, no one expected tropical monsoons in this part of the world.