YORK City boss Gary Mills insisted nobody can get “over-excited” after his team climbed out of the National League relegation zone for the first time since November.

A 2-0 victory at Chester, courtesy of Vadaine Oliver and Danny Holmes goals, lifted the Minstermen three places up to sixth-bottom in the table after Torquay and Woking drew at Aldershot and Barrow respectively and Braintree lost 2-1 while playing host to Dover.

Furthermore, the Minstermen now know that a victory at Solihull Moors on Good Friday will move them above the Midlanders, who were trounced 9-0 at Tranmere.

A pleased, but grounded, Mills said: “We’ve got ourselves out of the bottom four and that feels good, because this new squad has worked so hard to get us into this position. Everything is back in our hands, which is the most important thing and, if we do our jobs now, it will make the summer better for everybody.

“But, whilst it was a big win, it has to be the first of a couple more. We can’t get over-excited and we’ve got two big games coming up over Easter against Solihull and Wrexham when we will need to perform like we have against Chester because we know, if we do, we have strikers who will get goals if we give them chances.”

Mills admitted that he thought Amari Morgan-Smith had scored City’s second goal, as was wrongly announced over the Deva Stadium’s PA system.

But, when he learned that Holmes was the marksman, he felt it capped an “excellent” performance from the recalled right-wing back, who had earlier made a goal-saving challenge on Chester’s Johnny Hunt.

“Holmesy was excellent stepping in and he made the tackle of the game which enabled us to go on and win the points,” Mills declared. “I didn’t even know he scored the goal – I though Amari had – so I might have to check my contact lenses, but I’m told that was the case, which is even better from him.”

The City chief did, however, go on to praise Morgan-Smith, who set up Oliver’s first-half opener and hit the post after he was moved into a less advanced position.

“We dropped Amari a bit deeper because their player in the hole was causing us a few problems during the first ten minutes and he played superbly in there,” Mills explained.

The City manager also hailed his team’s character after overcoming the disappointment of Tuesday night’s 2-0 home defeat to Bromley when they missed out on an earlier chance to lift themselves above the drop zone.

“We were strong and competed really well,” he pointed out. “We created chances and, when they’re hitting the woodwork, you start thinking that might come back to bite us, but I thought we were excellent.

“We were all knocked back a bit by the Bromley result but, to bounce back like that and not let it affect them, shows what people and men we have.”