Spennymoor manager Jason Ainsley has told his players that they “must come to the party” when York City arrive at the Brewery Field for their first home league game of the season on Saturday afternoon.

The refurbished – and flatter -- Brewery Field pitch that is up to Football League standard is ready to be used, and Moors couldn’t have asked for better first opponents than league leaders York City, who are unbeaten in five matches, and have won both their away games so far.

But Ainsley knows that his team must produce their best performance of the season in this all ticket game – the redevelopment of the south side of the ground hasn’t been completed yet.

“We’ve trained on the pitch twice, and it’s unbelievable,” said Ainsley. “It’s a completely different surface to what it was before. Playing today is going to be well worth the wait.

“The season so far has been pretty stop-start while the work on the pitch continued, and we haven’t been able to play home games. We’ve played three away games, and we had an eleven-day gap between playing at Guiseley and playing at Farsley.

“It will be an unbelievable day because York are going well and will be very tough opponents for us. We’re expecting a great turnout of fans to support us, while York will probably sell out their allocation. It will be a cup tie atmosphere.”

Moors have failed to win any of their opening three league games, but it took them until the end of August to win their first game last season.

“Our players need to come to the party this afternoon, they must step forward. We played well for part of the game on the opening day at Hereford, but we didn’t hit the heights in our last two games.

“I had to miss the Farsley game for family reasons, and I must admit my meal was spoilt when the result came through. I think that was only the second game I’ve missed while I’ve been manager all these years.

“We must be tighter in defence. Tommy Miller and I have analysed the goals we’ve conceded, and all of them have been scored from inside our own box. We have been working on defence in our training sessions. We want a positive performance this afternoon because we haven’t performed anywhere near expectations yet this season.”

Defender Scott Harrison will be missing because of injury this afternoon, while midfielder Rob Ramshaw serves the last game of his four-match ban.

York have been one of the big spending clubs during the summer, bringing in several players from a higher level, including defender Steve McNulty, who was part of the Tranmere team that won successive promotions from the National League and League Two.

In the BetVictor League, Whitby are at Buxton, and South Shields are at home to Hyde United.