Steve Evans makes promotion pledge to supporters after second coming at Rotherham United

The former Leeds United chief will be formally reintroduced to Millers supporters ahead of Saturday’s home game with Birmingham City, the team who were ironically the opponents for Evans’ final match in charge of his first spell at the helm in September 2015.

The Scot’s previous memorable three-and-a-half year stint saw the Millers record back-to-back promotions and stay up in the second tier.

Now he is assigned with galvanising a club who have endured a pitiful demotion to League One.

Following Evans’ appointment, chairman Tony Stewart has stressed that the club are aiming to return to the Championship at the ‘first time of asking’ and Evans is not shying away from the challenge.

The 62-year-old, whose unfancied Stevenage side were in play-off contention in League One for the vast majority of 2023-24, before a late fall-away, said: “I’ve always lived in my career with expectation in my head.

"I analyse our performances and set my own benchmarks where we need to be. We will challenge for promotion next season.

"You cannot promise we will get promotion, these are the conversations my chairman (at Rotherham) and I had on Thursday evening, but we will contest promotion for sure.

"How do I manage it? No more than when I went to Stevenage, there were nine games to save the football club from going into non-league and I was speaking to (chairman) Phil Wallace about promotion from League Two next season (in 2022-23).

"We have a big job to do in the next two or three weeks analysing what we have got (at Rotherham) and then expectation will take care of itself.”

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Following his golden first spell at the club, Evans has stressed that returning to the AESSEAL New York Stadium, where he is sure of a rapturous ovation on Satrurday afternoon to mark his second coming and the town of Rotherham feels like ‘coming home’.

He added: "It’s fantastic. It was something I always dreamed of from the minute I left. We had spoken once or twice, but it was never with stars aligned.

"Then in the last day or so, the chairman had said ‘I’ve decided with the support of the board that the job is yours if you want it.’ I couldn’t say yes quick enough. It’s like coming home.

"The chairman has expedited the move so I have a proper assessment, not just of the players, but the infrastructure and staffing structure and everything. "We go forward with a very clean piece of paper, like last time when I arrived a few games before the end of a season.

"We’ve had an unbelievable welcome in the town from getting stopped in the petrol station to being in shops and restaurants. It’s unbelievable, we just hope we can do our chairman and board - and supporters - justice and for them to enjoy their football again.”

Chairman Stewart added: “Steve is committed to Rotherham and these are exciting times.

"We’ve been noted for going down from the Championship to League One and we must be in the Guinness Book of Records for jumping backwards and forwards. The aim is to get to where we need to be which is back in the Championship as soon as possible and then looking at the high heights.”