Darlington have no qualms about playing at Spennymoor Town

Moors came to the rescue on Tuesday when Heritage Park was waterlogged – the eighth time this season the pitch has been unplayable for a Darlington game.

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Unlike the seven previous occasions, quick-thinking Quakers called on Spennymoor and club owner Brad Groves was happy to help – he even waived a fee for use of the ground – to ensure the game against Skelmersdale went ahead.

In front of a 1,296 attendance, Darlington’s 3-0 win at the Brewery Field saw them leapfrog Blyth Spartans at the top of the table and grateful manager Martin Gray was full of praise for Moors’ accommodating stance.

Quakers director John Tempest thanked the club’s volunteers for helping stage the game.

He said: “All of our volunteers were superb on Tuesday night. They just smiled and got on with the job in hand, and that was to help the club as much as possible. All of them worked very hard, especially Sophie Heartfield in hospitality.

“I must also thank all our fans, who accepted the extra inconvenience of the late switch with good grace and good humour.

“There was a real sense of pulling together on Tuesday night, and that all contributed to an excellent evening. I must also thank the staff of Spennymoor Town for helping us at such short notice.”

Gray’s promotion-chasers are due to face Stamford at home on Saturday, when Spennymoor are away to Northwich Victoria, but with more wet weather forecast Heritage Park could again be out of bounds.

Winger Adam Mitchell was similarly effusive about Spennymoor’s home, praising the playing surface, and he said: “We’d have no problem at all with going back.

“The pitch is really good. Obviously there had been a lot of water on it, but the ball zipped about really nicely. Hopefully if our pitch at Darlo next season is anything like that we’ll be alright.

“The pitch is much better than ours, but there’s two teams playing at Bishop so ours has probably had 40-50 games on, Spennymoor’s will have had half of that, so gets more time to recover.”