Spennymoor Town manager Jason Ainsley says that he won’t tolerate another bad performance when they take on Hereford on Saturday afternoon.

Ainsley was furious with his team’s poor performance at Witton Albion last week, that saw them crash out of the FA Cup at the first hurdle, and ruin what had been a good run of results until then.

“We had enjoyed a really good month in the league,” said Ainsley. “We’d won four games and drawn another, and climbed nicely up the table.

“Then, suddenly, we came down to earth with a bump last week. That performance made me the angriest I’ve been for a very long time, it was completely unacceptable. I don’t mind getting beat too much if we’ve been the better side – such as our games against Telford and Bradford PA – but last week we were second best. That was our poorest performance for a long time, I really hadn’t seen it coming.”

Ainsley is therefore wanting a big improvement at Edgar Street. “I’m looking for a much better performance, we can’t have another one just as bad.

“But we know that we will have to be at our best, because they’ve done really well in recent years. We’re up against a fantastic club which has a lot of prestige about it, and not long ago was in the Football League.

“Our club has agreed to pay for us to go down the day before, so it is only right that we repay the club by producing a good performance and winning the game.”

Ainsley only has one injury issue – Ryan Hall is doubtful with an ankle injury.

The old Hereford United were wound up four seasons ago, and the current club restarted at Edgar Street. They won three successive promotions and reached the 2016 Vase final, losing to Morpeth, and then surprisingly sacked their manager, Peter Beadle, a fortnight ago after going four games without a win. They’d picked up ten points out of 12 at the start of the season.

Elsewhere, EvoStik Premier leaders South Shields go to Warrington, while Whitby are at Grantham.

In the EvoStik East, second placed Marske United are at Belper, and include new striker Matty Waters from Shildon.