Junior footballers can look forward to fewer postponed fixtures next season after work began to drain their pitches.

Cross Roads Junior Football Club, which uses the three pitches behind Butt Lane, Haworth, has been trying to get the situation solved since it moved to the site four years ago.

Club secretary Diana Sands, who has been a driving force behind the club's efforts to ease the problem, contacted Cllr Glen Miller to try to find a solution.

She was delighted the work had been started, but said that it was long overdue.

She said: "It is about time this work was carried out. We have been using the pitches for four years and we have had problems all that time.

"We pay for the pitches but we do not get any compensation for games being postponed."

Of the club's seven teams, four use the pitches for home matches. The club has also used the pitches for training and tournaments. Mrs Sands said during the winter, especially from October to January, very few games were played on the fields. It was very annoying.

"We have to let the opposition turn up to make a joint decision, but more often than not the games are postponed," she added.

Mrs Sands said some digging work which was carried out last summer had little effect. She hoped the latest efforts would be more successful.

She added: "Hopefully, things will be better now so we will keep our fingers crossed. At the moment it does not look much different, so only time will tell."

Cllr Miller said: "This is great news for the youngsters, who previously had seen more games called off because of water-logged pitches than games they were playing."

A Bradford Council parks and landscapes spokesman confirmed work was being carried out to reduce water-logging.

He said: "Work involves replacing a land drain and reseeding ground.

"The drainage improvements are in addition to annual maintenance work which takes places at the end of every football season, and we expect to complete it by mid-June."