DOUBLE-WINNING Wembley boss Gary Mills has admitted it will feel “sad” and “weird” to be facing York City in a National League fixture.

The former Bootham Crescent chief, who guided the club to FA Trophy and Conference play-off final glory on the hallowed turf in May 2012, will be crossing swords with the Minstermen for the first time since being relieved of his duties three-and-a-half years ago.

He is now in charge of Wrexham – City’s bank-holiday Monday hosts – but confessed that he still feels a strong affinity with his old team.

On the Racecourse Ground reunion, Mills said: “It will be nice to see people again, although it will feel a bit sad that I’m facing York in the Conference, because it’s hard to put into words what the club means to me.

“It will be absolutely great to see the York fans again though. I hope they have good, fond memories of my time at the club and the day I left was a sad one for me because, as you go through football as a player and a manager, there are some clubs that just feel right and York felt right for me.

“I have great memories of the job I did and the people I met and I loved every minute of my time there, so wanting to beat them will feel a little bit weird, but football is what it is and I’m the manager of Wrexham now and want three points.”

Mills famously became the youngest player to ever win the European Cup final at the age of 18 with Nottingham Forest, but still regards those eight magical days in May with the Minstermen as a career highlight.

“As a football manager, you work hard to get those types of occasions every season and they don’t come around very often,” he explained. “That week was an incredible time for me and, whatever happens in the rest of my career, it will take some topping.”

Mills went on to reveal that he did harbour images of a return to Bootham Crescent in the visitors’ dugout prior to his Gateshead team being defeated in the 2014 Conference play-off final.

It is no surprise, therefore, that Wrexham’s Easter Monday trip to North Yorkshire is already in his mind.

“I did have thoughts of going back to play York with Gateshead in League Two but, unfortunately, we lost to Cambridge and I’ve not been back to Bootham Crescent since I left,” Mills pointed out. “I’ve been back to York a couple of times with my wife because it’s a beautiful city.

“A couple of people also recognised me and thanked me for what I did, which was lovely. They wanted to talk about those eight days and York away was the first game I looked for when the fixtures came out.

“I’ve got to wait until April for that, but it will be a special day for me.”

Of the City squad that defeated Luton under the famous arch, only James Meredith, Dan Parslow, Matty Blair, Scott Brown and Ashley Chambers are now plying their trade in the Football League, aside from then loan signing and current Premier League defender Ben Gibson.

With the benefit of hindsight, Mills has suggested that he might have released a couple of players as City prepared for life back in the League, but also stressed that would have gone against his principles.

“If I could go back then, after we got promoted, maybe I wouldn’t have kept one or two players, who didn’t make the step up to League Two, but I am, who I am and I’ve got no regrets,” he explained. “I wanted to reward the players who got the club back into the League and there’s not enough loyalty in the game.

“When I went to Gateshead, I could have gone to Forest Green after about four weeks, but it’s not in my manner to do that. The chairman at Gateshead had brought me back into the game and the loyalty I felt for that was massive for me.

“I wanted to get straight back into management after what happened at York, but was out of work for a while and, sometimes, in this game, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done. I had to wait for a nice man and good chairman at Gateshead to give me a chance to get back in.”

Having spent the last four seasons in the National League with Gateshead and Wrexham, Mills also reckons standards in the division have hardly changed since he steered City out of it, with the recipe for success the same too.

“It’s a very similar division, although there might be more clubs throwing money at it,” he reasoned. “Some are paying incredible amounts – more than you would see in League Two and more than at some League One clubs.

“We’re not one of those clubs and we lost Connor Jennings to Tranmere. It’s just as tough a league to get out of as it was in 2012, but I’m just trying to build a team that is organised and together and, then, you can beat those teams, as we did at York when we met Luton in the play-off final.”