ANDY McMillan has admitted it will be an “emotional day” as he plots the downfall of his old club York City tomorrow.

Only 1960s stalwart Barry Jackson has played more times at Bootham Crescent than McMillan, whose 492 appearances included the club’s only win at the old Wembley stadium, as well as famous League Cup victories against Manchester United and Everton.

But the South African-born 49-year-old, who was a fans’ favourite throughout the 1990s and later took charge of the academy, will take his place in the visitors’ dugout for this weekend’s National League North clash against part-timers Alfreton Town, where he is now assistant manager.

On that prospect, McMillan confessed: “It will be a bit strange turning left instead of right and I’m expecting it to be an emotional day. I’m going back in a first-team capacity and I’ve wanted to work with senior players for a long time.

“A lot of York fans have been in touch with me since I went to Alfreton wishing me all the best and I’m looking forward to, hopefully, coming back and putting on a good show. I’d never want York to lose in any other circumstances, but you have to be professional and we’ve got to try and get something out of the game.”

McMillan is not the only one with a previous allegiance to City and left-back Tom Allan – another former player – is even employed as a community coach at Bootham Crescent for his day job, while Tom Platt was a key member of the squad that helped Nigel Worthington stave off the threat of relegation from the Football League in 2013.

But former right back McMillan wants all thoughts of the past to be kept in check, reasoning: “For all three of us, feelings will be running quite high,

“Tom (Allan) obviously still works as a community coach at York and we’ll speak to him before the game about that, because you’ve got to make sure you don’t go in for rash challenges or react to any that might come your way. He is playing well at left back and is deceptively quick for his height, as well as being honest and hard-working.

“Platty has also done well in midfield. He had a good game at Harrogate, which was another big occasion for him going back to an old club, as this one will be.”

McMillan was appointed Chris Moyses’ number two in mid-January when previous boss John McDermott parted company with the Reds.

Alfreton, who are currently 17th in the table, went on to take nine points from a possible 12 during the new management team’s first four matches and have followed that up with narrow odd-goal losses in high-scoring fixtures against title rivals Harrogate and Salford.

McMillan is, therefore, optimistic ahead of the trip to North Yorkshire if the team can eliminate some of their sloppy defensive play.

“We almost got it back to 4-4 at Harrogate on Tuesday, because their keeper made an unbelievable save to win the game for them,” McMillan declared. “We keep starting games sloppily and we should have had two points at least against the top two, so there have still been lots of positives to take into this game.

“We just need to cut out the mistakes that cost us in the first half at Harrogate, because we hadn’t played too badly otherwise. We had a great chance to score in the first ten minutes at Harrogate and started well, but couldn’t quite sustain it.

“We then changed shape for the second half and Nyal Bell, who we’ve brought in from Gateshead, came on and scored two goals.”

Harrogate’s midweek victory saw them climb above Salford on goal difference at the summit of the table and, having played both teams within the past five days, McMillan believes the former are better equipped to secure automatic promotion.

“Salford are big, strong and very effective in what they do,” McMillan pointed out. “They’re very good at set-pieces and, whilst individual errors cost us against them as well, I don’t think we quite coped with the physical side of the game.

“But I think Harrogate are the better team. They played really well in the first half and I’m pleased to see Simon Weaver doing good things there, because he’s a great lad.”

McMillan, meanwhile, refused to acknowledge that 25-goal top scorer Jon Parkin’s absence through suspension will weaken City tomorrow, having taken notice of Whitley Bay recruit and possible replacement Alex Kemspter’s impressive goalscoring start to his Bootham Crescent career.

“Jon is effective in what he does but we know that Kempster has come into the club and looked lively,” McMillan reasoned. “Jon is a bit like Mark Beck, who scored twice against us at Harrogate, because he holds the ball up well, but Kemspter will give them something different and another option.

“We know the Curzon game wasn’t a good performance for them and what went off on social media afterwards with one of the players won’t have helped either, but everybody will be looking for some sort of a reaction from that. We just want our players to build on two good performances though and cause York problems.”

McMillan was in charge of the youth team at Lincoln when Moyses was first-team manager and the former feels the pair’s skills complement each other.

“Chris is happy to manage and I want to coach, so we work really well together,” McMillan outlined. “He allows me to get on with what I want to do and, if I have an opinion about the team, I’ll give Chris it, but it’s obviously up to him which players he picks.”

The pair only see their players twice in the week when the club train at Doncaster – a one-and-a-half hour round trip from Alfreton.

McMillan is also combining the coaching role with his day job for the York-based i2i Academy, but he has been delighted with the squad’s desire to fulfil the club’s targets this term.

“The players are part-time with good jobs, but they do what they have to do to compete at this level,” McMillan added. “We work them hard and have got them to buy into our philosophy in terms of how we want to play.

“The main thing this season is to stay in the league. That was our remit, along with getting the players organised, fit and strong and I feel we’ve done that, but it’s still very tight at the bottom.

“Our goal difference could help us in that respect, but we’ve still got some tough games coming up against teams in and around the play-offs.”