The North Shore’s hottest real estate? A patch of grass on Saturday morning

North Shore sports associations are facing a crisis. 

Two years ago a report from Northern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (NSROC) predicted that, by 2026, demand for sports fields in the region would outgrow supply by 40 percent. 

By 2036, this would grow to a shortfall of nearly 50 percent. 

But for most people who play sports on the North Shore, you don’t need to show them these figures. Regular reschedulings and cancellations of matches are enough to know there is a significant shortage of grounds in the area. It’s approaching a point where restrictions on new players have begun to be a consideration.

“We don't want to become the first LGA in Australia to have to turn people away because we don't have enough sporting fields”, Kevin Johnson, CEO of Northern Suburbs Football Association, told the North Shore Lorikeet.

Only recently, Johnson said, other sporting associations – like the Sutherland Shire Football Association – have tightened their restrictions around members, only allowing new players within the LGA. 

Without significantly improved sports infrastructure, the North Shore will be facing a similar reality: sooner, rather than later. 

“We've got about two or three divisions of men who have to play on Sundays because we don't have enough grounds on Saturdays,” Johnson said. 

When asked whether matches are ever outright cancelled due to shortages, Johnson turned around his laptop screen to show a spreadsheet of football games played in the last week. 

“You can see here, for instance, last weekend — usually we have about 300-ish competition matches — we only got in about 177.”

Local councils are not ignorant of the issue.

Ku-ring-gai council’s drafted Capital Works Program for 2026 – 2029 proposes upgrades for at least five sports fields in the area. According to Johnson, however, these upgrades would still fail to offset growing demand. 

Nathan Tilbury, who has sat on the Hornsby Shire Council since 2012 — and was involved in the 2023 NSROC report — agreed that not enough was being done to address the reports findings. When asked whether he believed the present model through which parks are built and upgraded — in which local government acts as the primary funding source — was sufficient, Tilbury was resolute in his answer: “Absolutely not.”

“There is a high demand now. You’ve got sporting clubs that are turning away registrations now.”

Most significantly, the initial NSROC report, published in 2023, does not fully account for the implementation of Transport-Oriented-Developments across the North Shore, according to Tilbury.

“They [The NSW Government] are very keen to rezone parts of the North Shore for housing, but there is no plan to deliver the new recreation facilities”, Tilbury said.

“That demand in the NSROC report already exists, without the new residents”.

Notably, it’s likely this lack of facilities would disproportionately affect women's sports. 

“Our female players now are about 28 percent of total players, that's up from 25 percent a few years ago,” Johnson told us. 

“The biggest growth area, we think, will be female football, and they might be disadvantaged because they are the last ones coming in. If you took Sutherland for an example, certainly they would be disadvantaged there.”