I think there's a big misconception about how big hockey is in England because its getting promoted more these last few years. I've played hockey in The Netherlands and England, and been involved in the hockey associations coaching and management. Yes, England have been hosting a lot of big tournaments at the Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis centre, but your idea that they are well attended are slightly flawed. Only the games where England play are fully sold out, the rest of the games the stadium is at least 30% empty (with the exception when the Dutch play because hockey is such a popular sport in The Netherlands that people always travel to tournaments plus loads live in the UK). Back to hockey schemes around clubs have been a good initiative that have indeed attracted players to come back and play hockey, but to call them huge is incorrect, on average at the club you get around 15-25 new people a year, which is nothing because there is decent outflow of players quitting at the end of every season.
Regarding the big clubs in England having grown to 9-10 teams in recent years, there really aren't that many clubs that big in England that have that amount of teams. If you look at the Northern Region/district of England Hockey the clubs are big but only because there are far fewer clubs in that whole area. Also it looks like a lot of clubs have many teams because they also state their Mixed/Social teams on their websites, but these are obviously players who are already part of another team too, thus not boosting total numbers.
Your point on youth players being put in senior teams because clubs are overpopulated is wrong, in England (unlike The Netherlands) its very common to have kids over the age of 13 play with senior teams because youth competitions are limited in the UK. This is due to the fact that England Hockey Association uses the "central system" ( where kids are going to designated clubs to showcase talent) to spot new talent for national teams, but these always run the days youth competitions are played (Sundays). These central system days are once a month, making it simply impossible to have a full youth competition season because of the lack of playable dates. There are only a handful of clubs that actually have big youth sections within the club, Surbiton probably being a major standout with 900 kids which is unique in the UK numbers wise, most other big clubs have 200 kids max.
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