The Northern League title race is due to extend into mid-May - if the Football Association give their seal of approval.

As well as aiming to win the FA Vase at Wembley on May 4, Spennymoor Town are locked in a thrilling race for the single promotion place available with Darlington, whose season finishes on May 1.

But an updated fixture list released late on Wednesday revealed Moors to have matches lined up until May 17 - well beyond the deadline that the FA have previously stated.

At the beginning of this month the FA's leagues manager, Mike Appleby, was quoted as telling clubs at Step 5 that the latest date for league games would be May 7.

Appleby, who was unavailable for comment last night, said on twentyfour7football.com: "It is vital that we are advised of your Step 5 promotion teams by midnight on May 7, as the Step 1 to 4 club allocation meeting takes place in Worcester on May 8.

"This therefore allows an additional couple of days to ensure that your championship is decided."

But Moors are due to play league games on May 13, 15 and 17, plus they have also a match with Consett that has yet to be arranged.

Northern League fixtures secretary, Tony Golightly, however, revealed that the FA could, in theory, ask him to redo the fixtures that he has put together, forcing Spennymoor to play their remaining ten games by May 8.

He said: "The FA, as always, will make the decision. I will contact them about the situation and say that anybody with any sense can see that it's nobody's fault but the weather and Spennymoor just can't finish their fixtures [by May 7].

"I've been told today by someone, not the FA, that teams that haven't played their fixtures by a certain date cannot be promoted. Well I haven't been told that [by the FA].

"Mike Appleby did tell me that he wanted the clubs that have a chance of promotion to finish their fixtures by May 4. I wrote back and said that Darlington's fixtures will finish by May 4, but it's impossible for Spennymoor to have ended theirs by that date."

He added: "Now that I've done the fixtures, I will be sending them to the FA's appointments officer today to say that these are the games, but there may be changes.

"I'll then write to Mike Appleby and say 'following our correspondence previously, the position now is that these are when we can play these games'. Unless they ask me to make players - who also work - play Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in one week or something like that...

"If the FA have made a decision then they should have made it clearer."

Golightly can foresee a situation that would see both Darlington and Spennymoor's names put forward by the Northern League for promotion.

"If I was at the FA I would be report to that meeting on May 8 saying that there are two clubs who have the possibility of promotion from the Northern League: Darlington and Spennymoor," he said.

"Spennymoor have been unable to play all of their fixtures by that date, but that committee should be told that either Spennymoor Darlington will be promoted.

"That has to be ratified at a later date, and by the time that's ratified they will know which team is going up."

Golightly, meanwhile, was left frustrated by a handful of people who contacted him after Wednesday night's updated fixtures.

He said: "I'm absolutely outraged at some of the things that they are coming out with.

"They're suggesting there's been a conspiracy against Darlington, but that's just ludicrous. It's not my fault it rained so much in December.

"A few weeks ago I did all the remaining fixtures and sent them out to the clubs and thought 'there we are, we've done it at last', and on the Friday night it snowed and every single game was off the next day.

"The weather has been awful, Spennymoor have been very successful in the cups - if Darlington had been in the Vase they might've been in the same position - so I don't know people think we can fit games in.

"Spennymoor are playing every Saturday, twice in midweek and they've still got games to play on top of that - when do these people think Spennymoor can play them?"