YORK City’s new defender Hamza Bencherif is determined to avoid a repeat of last season when he lifted the FA Trophy as a relegated player with Halifax.

Gary Mills has set his Minstermen team a double target of preserving National League status, before going on to win non-League football’s primary knockout competition at Wembley.

Centre-back Bencherif, who is eligible to play in the Trophy having only been an unused substitute in the tournament this term for previous club Wrexham, achieved the latter with the Shaymen seven months ago but, agonisingly, the West Yorkshire outfit had fallen one point short of survival three weeks earlier.

Despite that setback, though, the Paris-born, 28-year-old agrees with Mills that the Trophy can complement, rather than distract from, the vital battle to stay in the division.

“Taking the Halifax fans with us to Wembley and winning the Trophy was a wonderful and unbelievable experience, so I’ve been in this situation before and I know you have to separate both competitions,” Bencherif reasoned. “Hopefully, this time, we can get in a healthy position in the league as soon as possible and, then, try and win the Trophy because that would mean we could enjoy it much more.

“There are a lot of games to play if you are going to get to the final, but I think we’ve got the squad that can deal with that. At Halifax, we had a young team, but we’ve got more experience here.

“But, even taking that into consideration, you couldn’t really say the Trophy distracted us last season, because we were well adrift and got closer to safety. We won games in the Trophy that gave us belief to win games in the league, but we just didn’t quite pull it off.”

Bencherif moved on to Wrexham rather than tasting life in National League North with Halifax and, having worked with City’s management team of Mills and Darren Caskey in Wales, he is pleased to be benefitting from their guidance again at Bootham Crescent, saying: “In football, you have different types of people – coaches and managers.

“With the gaffer and Cask, they are a good combination, because you’ve got somebody who is a proper man-manager, who speaks to the players and explains what he wants, as well as getting them motivated. The gaffer has been around football for a very long time and has seen it all, so he passes that on to the players.

“Then, you’ve got Cask who puts on really good training sessions. I think they both get the best out of players.”

As a past Wrexham and Lincoln team-mate of last weekend’s match-winner Sean Newton, Bencherif went on to admit he was certain his old pal would hit the target when he had the chance to settle matters in the 94th minute against Barrow.

“I had no doubt, to be honest, that Newts would score,” the 6ft 3in sentinel declared.

“I’ve seen him do it before at Wrexham and Lincoln. He’s got a wand of a left foot and it was a good goal.”

Bencherif and Newton were also both members of a Wrexham team that lost 2-0 at tomorrow’s hosts Aldershot back in August but, while the former is expecting another tough contest, he does not feel a trip to the Recreation Ground presents an insurmountable challenge.

“I find that it’s never easy travelling to play teams in London and they’ve been on a good run but, from what I’ve seen of our team, I don’t think anybody in the league should worry us,” he explained.

“If we play as well or better than we did against Barrow, it should be a decent end to the season, because they have had a good season but, until their goal, they didn’t really have a shot on target. I thought it was a comfortable game for us that didn’t show where we are in the table and where they are.

“Both of their strikers have scored lots of goals this season, but I thought we kept them quiet. We also showed great character, because we didn’t give up until the last second to get the win.”

The one-time Nottingham Forest trainee slotted into a right-sided, back-three role on his debut against Barrow, but has revealed he is equally at ease in a number of different positions and systems, saying: “Playing there gives me more time to go forward and get down the line and I’ve play in a three before, as well as a flat four.

“I’ve also played in midfield and I have no problems with any of that, because it’s all about what’s best for the team. I know what the manager wants from me having worked with him before and, hopefully, there’s more to come when I get used to the players around me and gel with them.”

Bencherif also relishes the physical test of lower-league defending – something he first encountered as an on-loan teenager with Lincoln back in 2007 when City youth-team coach Steve Torpey was winding down his professional career as an Imps striker at the age of 36.

“Lincoln were in League Two at the time and I was on loan there from Forest at the age of 19,” Bencherif explained. “Steve was there as well and he was an absolute mountain of a striker.

“He was strong and experienced and I learned a lot playing against him in training.”

Having made seven appearances and scored one goal for Algeria’s under-20 team from 2005 to 2006, meanwhile, Bencherif was once linked with a call-up to the full national team but, with the likes of Leicester City pair Riyad Mahrez and Islam Slimani strutting their stuff for the Desert Warriors these days, he feels the quality of the current squad means the opportunity of a senior cap has probably passed him by.

“Back then, the national team wasn’t as strong as it is now and I was having a really good season in League Two with Macclesfield,” he recalled. “It was my first full senior season and I was flying, but then I broke my leg and ankle and was out for a year, which was unfortunate timing, because there had been talk about me getting a call-up.

“Now, the squad is full of Premier League players, so there’s not the same opportunity.”