DOG mess is fouling the fields that Stratton’s junior football teams use to play weekend matches.

And pet owners are split with some dog walkers saying the problem is down to a few people who do not keep track of their animals.

The angry dog owners say other dogwalkers leaving the mess on Meadowcroft’s pitches was making them look bad and affecting young players’ enjoyment of their games.

Wayne Acathan said: “These poor kids are having to play on a pitch full of dog poo because of lazy disgusting dog owners who should be ashamed.”

Andrew Brien agreed: “We own a dog and find it disgusting that people just walk away and don’t bother or care about picking it up.”

Donna Miles said: “Most of this is from owners who let dogs off and spend most of the time on their phone on not paying attention.

"It gives good owners a bad name. What really annoys me is there are five dog poo bins and they still leave it.”

Heather Ware said: “It makes me so angry. Don’t have a dog if you are not going to clear up after them.”

Stratton Juniors Football Club’s chairman Magnus Painter said: “It is inconsiderate but it happens at every open field.

“There is a health and safety aspect as kids are playing there, so people should clean up their dog’s mess.

“A bigger problem for us is people driving across the fields. We try to work with locals as much as possible to prevent this, and the parish council has been good to us.

“We’ve grown from nine teams to 25 so we’re hoping to expand to a second venue at Merton Fields."

The club successfully applied to lease four pitches and a pavilion at Meadowcroft for every weekend of the football season until 2025.

Stratton St Margaret Parish Council’s open spaces manager Oliver Saunders praised the team and its management at the last committee meeting.

He said: “It’s really improved, they have done a brilliant job.

"They built this club up from nothing to give so much pleasure and fun to hundreds of girls and boys in the area.

“They have struggled with land tenure to have proper pitches. They’ve played at Meadowcroft for a while and it’s gone well.

"We need to provide more for them so that they can give better service to the kids that play football there. Having a more permanent base will open up avenues for grant funding for the club.”

Councillors voted unanimously to give the club a five year lease with a chance to extend it further during this time.

Mr Painter added: “This has given us somewhere to call home and we can apply for funding from Sport England and try to improve the crowd facilities.”