Spennymoor play their third game in five exhausting days at home to North Ferriby today.

It is perhaps little wonder that manager Jason Ainsley is concerned about the fitness of most of his squad after playing two “home” games 50 miles away in Harrogate in the space of three days this week, while there have been doubts over the venue of today’s game all week because of the effect of the bad weather on the Brewery Field pitch.

“The effects of fatigue are beginning to worry me,” he said. “We decided to use the squad to its full extent this week because of our fixture schedule, but now we’ve got some injuries, and it’s difficult for some players to recuperate.

“We will have to look at several players before we decide on the starting line up.”

Moors have collected just a single point from the two home games against Boston and Brackley, and that has opened the door for Chorley, who are two places and three points behind Moors on the same games.

“This is now a must-win game as far as we’re concerned,” said Ainsley.

“Ferriby have improved considerably in recent weeks under their new manager, and even though they’re relegated, they have picked up some good results.

“Even though we lost on Thursday, ironically I thought we played better than we did on Tuesday. Brackley are an excellent team, perhaps the best we’ve played against this season. We played some good football on Thursday and had some great efforts, but I could see why Brackley are near the top.

“We need to win this game, because we have a tough week next week, with Kidderminster on Tuesday, Darlington on Thursday and Curzon Ashton on Saturday – it doesn’t get any easier.

“But having said that, before the season started if we’d been offered sixth place in the league a fortnight before the end of the season, then we would have snapped their hands off.

“The players have to show plenty of character now and show that they’re up for a fight, and reward the supporters, who have been magnificent. We must have had over 400 of them at each of the games this week, which is fantastic support.”

Ainsley is hoping that top scorer Glen Taylor can return, but there are injury doubts over Ryan Hall and David Foley.

The reverse fixture on Humberside earlier in the season saw Moors produce one of their best away performances of the season, when they won 6-0, with Micky Anderson amongst the goals with a hat trick.

Ferriby were relegated almost a month ago, but have recently pulled off a surprise draw with leaders Salford City, and beaten Blyth.