Bishop Auckland manager Colin Myers wants to leave the club in style when his side face Dunston UTS in the final of the Brooks Mileson Northern League Cup at Consett on Saturday.

Myers announced his intention to quit after Bishops’ last league game of the season against Newcastle Benfield, after taking charge of the club for the second time soon after the start of the season.

“I’ve done what was asked of me when I took over, and that was to save them from relegation,” he said.

“I’ve decided to step aside, and let someone else take the team over. It hasn’t worked out for me for a few reasons. It would be great to go out with a League Cup win.

“I genuinely want the club to do really well in the future, and it would be great to see them back in the Northern Premier League.”

Bishops are the underdogs for this game on Consett’s 4G surface, and he said; “We might just have rode our luck in this competition, so we’re hoping that bodes well. We were dead and buried at Penrith at half time in one round, but we changed things around and won.

“We scraped through against Newcastle Benfield in the semi-final, just a couple of weeks after being hammered by them in the league. There seem to be a lot of things happening in our favour.

“We know that Dunston are a strong team and are the favourites, but on the other hand, they’ve played at least three games a week for the last three weeks, whereas we haven’t played for over a week.”

Dunston thumped Bishops 6-2 in the league cup and 6-1 in the league at the UTS stadium, but Bishops won the reverse fixture 2-1 in the league.

Myers will have a small squad to choose from, mainly because twelve players are either ineligible or injured. He only had 13 players available in the semi-final.

“We’ll be using five Under 23s in the squad, because we have no-one else available. “ Bishops’ final kicks off at 3pm, and is preceded by the Ernest Armstrong Cup final between Chester-le-Street and Ryton at noon.

Chester haven’t won a cup competition since they won the Monkwearmouth Charity Cup as a Wearside League club in 1982, and manager Colin Wake said; “We will have a right go at winning the club’s first trophy since the 80s. We have a few injury problems, but we have faith that the 14 players that take the field will do themselves justice.”

Five players are missing because of injury, four more will have fitness tests, while Kevin Dixon and Joshua King both return.

Marske United and Morpeth, the two clubs who have promoted from the Northern League to the newly created EvoStik League East, will have trips all the way down to Cambridgeshire in the new season.

The EvoStik First Division has been re-formed from a North and South split to an East and West split for season 2018-19, and the footprint of that division will go all the way down to Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, a 470 mile round trip for Morpeth. Yaxley and Peterborough, also in Cambridgeshire, will be slightly shorter trips.

The other clubs in the league include Spalding in Lincolnshire and Loughborough in Leicestershire.

Consett have appointed former Darlington midfielder Chris Moore as their new manager following the resignation of Mark Eccles for work reasons. Moore was also a part of the Darlington team that won the FA trophy at Wembley in 2011.

Moore has management experience in the league at Durham City, before he moved on to Whitley Bay and then Consett as assistant manager.

ENL Second Division Brandon are looking for a new manager following the resignation of Steve Skinner, who had been in charge since the turn of the year and helped them recover to third bottom of the table, which they are hoping is enough for them to avoid relegation.

“What we spoke about when I went into the club has all changed die to some other issues in the club,” he said. “It’s very hard to keep going and improving. I got my hunger back, and now I’m looking to see what else pops up over the summer.”