Spennymoor Town manager Jason Ainsley says that the job is only half done after an excellent 3-1 away win in the semi final first leg at Guernsey on Saturday.

Moors didn’t allow the long distance, an aborted landing at Guernsey airport, a 4,290 crowd, a heavy pitch and a partisan atmosphere to unsettle them, and despite the manager’s caution, they must be clear favourites to finish the job in the second leg at the Brewery Field this Saturday.

Moors are on target for their first Wembley final thanks to an excellent second half display and an early substitution, but memories of the older Moors fans will stretch back to 1978, when they drew the first leg of their FA Trophy semi final at Leatherhead, but then lost the second leg at the Brewery Field.

The man who has put them in sight of the famous Arch is Steve “Speedy” Richardson, who came on as an early sub for the injured Wayne Phillips and scored twice, before he himself was subbed in the second half.

“The tie certainly isn’t over by any means,” said Ainsley. “Guernsey have shown that they’re a good side, and they’re certainly not going to give up for the second leg when you consider that a place at Wembley is at stake.

“Speedy came off the bench and scored two very good goals. I wanted our big name players to step up to the mark before the game, which they did, but the unsung heroes in the team came to the fore with huge credit.

“Ironically, I thought about putting Micky Rae on as sub, but I decided to go with Speedy, and within five minutes he scored.

“I thought it was a very good performance by us. We created a couple of chances and didn’t put them away at 0-0. After Speedy scored his first, we conceded an equaliser which looked a yard offside, but in the second half we put in a very professional performance.

“But we still have to remember that Guernsey are well capable of scoring goals away from home, as they have done in previous rounds. We need to produce another similar performance to Saturday’s”.

The game nearly didn’t take place though after a week of bad weather on the holiday island. Volunteers worked throughout the night on the pitch, and then a helicopter lent a hand.

Ainsley said: “It was surreal in the morning. Our hotel was only about half a mile away from the ground, and I went over early to see in what condition the pitch was. I stood on the pitch, and somebody came over and asked me to move for safety reasons, because a helicopter was coming to try and dry it! There was talk of the kick off being delayed for an hour or two, but we managed to kick off on time, although the pitch was still very heavy.”

Mark Davison nearly gave Moors an early lead when he pounced on a mistake in the Guernsey defence, but his effort went wide of the post, then he put a header wide from a Wayne Phillips cross.

Guernsey had a couple of chances themselves, before Moors took the lead on 34 minutes, when the Guernsey defence made a mess of a right wing cross, and the ball dropped nicely for Richardson to volley past Chris Tardif.

But Guernsey levelled from a well-executed short corner routine, which ended with the ball fired low across the face of goal for Dominic Heaume to flick home from a couple of yards.

However, Moors recovered their composure, and regained the lead on the hour, when a ball from the left was helped on by Gavin Cogdon for Richardson to fire right footed into the top corner from the edge of the box.

And they gained a useful, but not quite decisive, two goal advantage on 73 minutes when Cogdon chased the ball to the bye line and at full stretch pulled the ball back for Andrew Stephenson to crash past the keeper.

Guernsey were reduced to ten men when their skipper, Tom Cochrane, elbowed Cogdon in the face right in front of the assistant, and was shown red.

Guernsey manager Tom Vance said: “We were second best most of the time to a decent side. Still we will have a right good go next week.”

Moors are advising fans to get to the ground early on Saturday, and they are hoping that the attendance will be well over 1,000.