Darlington’s promotion party continues this evening when they receive the Northern League trophy at the final match of their title-winning season.

The celebrations began on Saturday after defeating Team Northumbria, and following tonight’s all-ticket game with Guisborough Town at Heritage Park they will be presented with the silverware that they have been chasing all season.

Northern League president George Courtney MBE, the former World Cup referee from Spennymoor, will do the honours, officially crowning Quakers as champions at the climax of a season in which they have so far recorded 39 wins.

Manager Martin Gray, though, has demanded his team reaches 40.

Win tonight, against a team that defeated Darlington 4-1 in September, evening and Quakers will have defeated every team in the division at least once and he said: “We’ll rotate a little, but there won’t be wholesale changes as it’ll be business as usual because I want to finish the job off.

“We’ll be treating the game just as like we have any other this season and I’m demanding a win.

“We’ve got a good record that we’re proud of and we want to keep it so there’ll be no taking our foot off the pedal, we want to go out on a win and to put on a show for the fans because they deserve it.”

Last night 100 tickets remained, meaning another crowd of around 2,000 crowd will be in attendance as supporters celebrate winning promotion for the first time since 1991.

“I’m looking forward to lifting the trophy,” added Gray. “It’ll be a special moment and I’ll be a proud manager watching the players go up the steps because we’ve had a magnificent season.”

He has made minimal changes to the starting XI in the last couple of months, which is in contrast to the first half the season when the manager regularly strengthened the squad.

As Darlington prepare to say farewell to the Northern League, with the Evo-Stik First Division North being their next destination, he paid tribute to the players who were regulars back in August.

He said: “From picking that team for our first friendly at Whitby Town, the players I recruited back then I’d like to say thank you to. We’ve made seven or eight changes during the season to improve the squad and this is about everybody – not just about the lads that have got us over the line.

“It goes back to the start of the season. Jack Norton got 14 clean sheets in the first two months, Marc Ellison was with us and played a lot of games – everybody’s played their part.

“The lads at the start of the season got us off to a good start so please don’t forget them.”

Former Darlington manager David Hodgson is due to attend. He brought Gray to the club as a midfielder in 1999, the season that ended with Quakers beaten at Wembley in a play-off final, and the pair have remained friends.

* Tickets are available at Quakers’ club shop 1.30-4pm and anyone without one will not be admitted into Heritage Park. Kick-off is 7.45pm and the turnstiles and clubhouse will be open from 6pm.

*The trophy presentation will be made at the rear of the main stand on the balcony. Players will emerge from the tunnel and walk up the stairs of the stand. At the end of the game spectators will be permitted to gather in front of the main stand, behind the barriers, to watch proceedings. Supporters in the main stand will be requested to remain in their seats during the ceremony, but if they wish to leave the stand they should exit via the bottom of the stairs. There will be no exit via the clubhouse entrance.

The clubhouse will close after half time and re-open after the presentation.