MARTIN GRAY is not worried by Spennymoor’s rise in fortunes and has called on his Darlington players to focus on their own jobs tonight.

Quakers travel to Northwich Victoria to play one of their two games in hand over EvoStik League Division One North leaders Salford City, and Gray believes promotion is still in their hands.

However, while Darlington have been looking up, Spennymoor have been quietly going about their business below them, and Saturday’s victory against Padiham cut Quakers’ lead over the Moors to three points.

But Gray said of Spennymoor’s late charge: “I’m not interested, it doesn’t bother me at all. I’m not here to talk about Spennymoor, I’m here to talk about Darlington.

“It’s down to what we do, if we do our job we’ve got a great chance.

“It’s a tough league, it’s exciting and it’s all to play for for many teams. We’ve given ourselves a great chance to be in the mix, we know what we have to do, it’s in our own hands.”

Quakers were left frustrated when Saturday’s match against Warrington Town was postponed owing to a waterlogged pitch, and Gray’s side are champing at the bit to play tonight.

“We just want to get playing again,” said Gray. “You’ve got to deal with the postponements and accept that that’s just the way it is, you can’t always change it. It means that we’re fresh for tonight and we can hopefully get a real performance.

“We trained on Saturday to keep things ticking over, we’ve just got to make sure that we’re all on top of our game against Northwich.

“We can’t afford anyone to have an off night. They’re one of the best teams in the league and it will be a tough game.

Alan White is suspended this evening, but Liam Hatch is available to slot into the skipper’s place, which will be a boost for Quakers against the height of the Northwich side.

“Hatchy’s available, we’re full strength,” said Gray. “They’re a big team, and they’ll be well-organised. It’ll be a tough, tough game but we just have to make sure we do our jobs right.”

Spennymoor's EvoStik League game at New Mills was postponed last night, and has been re-arranged for Wednesday April 8, which means that Moors will be playing four games in eight days. They are due at Salford on Saturday, at home to Harrogate RA on Easter Monday, and then at Bamber Bridge on April 11.