Brad Groves: The man behind Moors' revival

"I'd been through the books and knew they were all over the place," he said. "Another few weeks, and there was a very real chance they were going to go bust.

"Then I looked out of the window. There were weeds growing behind both of the goals, the pitch had a massive slope on it, neither of the changing rooms were fit for purpose, the central heating system was on the blink and there wasn't even really any proper turnstiles. Apart from that, everything was in good shape."

It was 2009, and one of the most remarkable transformations in North-East non-league football was about to begin. Fast forward four years, and both on and off the pitch, things could hardly be more different.

Financially self-sufficient, Spennymoor do not have an overdraft and do not owe a penny to the banks. Groves admits to having invested a "six-figure sum" since he succumbed to the persuasive powers of Moors boss Jason Ainsley and agreed to take over at Brewery Field, but the club has now reached a stage where it is able to finance itself.

The facilities at Brewery Field have been transformed - a new clubhouse, new changing rooms, a new pitch and the North-East's most advanced floodlights outside the professional game.

And on the field, things could hardly have been more successful. Northern League champions for the last three seasons, Spennymoor will contest a record four cup finals this term, the highlight of which will be this afternoon's FA Vase final at Wembley.

It has been a stunning turnaround, so given the dire situation in which so many of the region's non-league clubs find themselves, what has been the secret of Groves' success?

"I think you get two types of people running a football club," said the 44-year-old North-Easterner, who was born and raised in Easington Lane. "You either get people who know a bit about business, but don't have a clue how football works, or you get football people who don't have a clue how to run a business. If it's going to work, you have to have both."

And that is where Groves, one of the most fascinating characters on the North-East football scene, comes in.

A talented young footballer who played in the same junior teams as Paul Kitson, Groves was preparing for trials with Aston Villa, Watford, Celtic and Falkirk when a serious injury wrecked his chances of making it in the professional game.

Having left school at 16, he got a job as a youth trainee at Monument Sports in Newcastle. Ten years later, he was the managing director of the company. The business became Blacks Leisure Group and evolved to become the third biggest leisure group in Europe before it was bought by JD Sports in 2002.

After that, Groves was head-hunted by John Caudwell, head of the Caudwell Group, which owned a number of established businesses such as Phones4U. For seven years, he helped the company grow into a £5bn-a-year global concern, before he left to perform chairman and non-executive director roles at a number of FTSE-100 registered and well-known companies up and down the land.

So when it comes to negotiating Spennymoor's finances, it's safe to say he knows his profit from his loss.

"People say the finances of football are complicated," he said. "But they're not. Don't spend what you haven't got. It's the golden rule of business, but people get it wrong all the time.

"I know absolutely everything that's going on at this club. I see every invoice, draw up every budget and sign every cheque. As we're sitting here now, I can tell you exactly how much we've spent this month, exactly what we've spent it on, and exactly how we're going to pay for it. Right down to the boxes of crisps behind the bar.

"It's about accountability, and also about being creative in terms of raising finance. We've got sponsorship deals that would make some professional clubs jealous. We've got in excess of 100 different sponsors over the course of a season, but that doesn't happen overnight. You have to go out there and work for it.

"We've also got a specialist events team who organise two major dinners a year, regular fund-raising nights at the club and a range of promotions and draws. Every single penny they raise goes back into the club."

Be that as it may, it still begs the question, why is one of the region's most successful businessmen devoting two days of his week to the running of a Northern League football club? Doesn't he have better things to do with his time and money?

The answer can be found in his love of the game, coupled perhaps with a sense of thwarted ambition that stems back to his curtailed playing days.

In 1999, while he was busy building up Blacks, he set up and managed Hetton Lyons, who over the course of the next decade went on to become the most successful Sunday League side in the country, winning four FA Sunday Cup finals.

When he took over at Spennymoor, many of the same players played for both teams, an arrangement that meant he felt an instant bond.

"I'd been approached by lost of clubs to invest, but for quite a while I was happy with Hetton Lyons," he said. "In fact, a number of professional clubs offered me roles within their organisations - they were going to pay me to run things rather than look for me to put money in.

"I'd always thought there were three or four North-Eastern clubs I might potentially look to get involved with - Spennymoor, Bishop Auckland, maybe Blyth - so when Jason approached me with Hetton having pretty much achieved everything they were ever going to, the timing was right."

Today's appearance at Wembley marks a notable milestone on the Spennymoor journey, but Groves is adamant it is not the summit of the club's ambitions.

"Realistically, I think Spennymoor can aspire to be a top-eight club in Conference North," he said. "You have to be honest, and we're never going to be a full-time club in the Conference.

"But with the infrastructure we have in place, Conference North is definitely attainable, and as great as this Wembley run has been, next season the overriding ambition will be to win promotion from the Northern League. We're more than ready for that."