Have your say: Delighted boss Mills calls on Minstermen to make it a Wembley double this season

Mills said he would only be content with a Wembley double as his team chase a place in the Football League.

York will play Newport County in the final on May 12 after beating Luton Town 2-1 on aggregate in the semi-final.

Matty Blair’s dramatic 90th-minute goal earned a 1-1 draw at Kenilworth Road on Saturday after York won the first leg 1-0 at Bootham Crescent.

But rather than rest on his laurels and the “proudest moment” of his managerial career, Mills has his sights on an even bigger prize as the club look to end their eight-year exile from the Football League.

With York lying sixth in the Conference, just one place and two points off the play-offs and with games in hand on all bar one of their rivals, the City manager said his hunger would only be sated by reaching the play-off final at Wembley on May 20.

“It’s a great feeling to get to the final of the FA Trophy, but now we’ve got to make sure we get to Wembley twice,” he declared. “That’s got to be the most important thing now and the No 1 target.

“I want to win the FA Trophy, but I also want to be the manager who gets us out of this league. We’ve worked hard all season to get to where we are and now we’ve got to work hard to get to Wembley in the play-offs.”

York stand to make around £250,000 for winning the Trophy – a not insignificant sum for a club which budgets to lose £300,000 a year.

Although Mills has yet to discuss with the board how much, if any, of that money would be available to strengthen his squad, he has no doubt what the competition means to the club in general.

“The FA Trophy is massive for us,” he added. “You can make more in the Trophy by getting to the final and winning it than by getting to the third round of the FA Cup.

“For me as a manager, that could well help going into next season and it will certainly only help the chairman, who is consistently helping this club out and putting money in.

“Getting to the final and, hopefully, winning it is about paying the chairman back, too, and I’d love to do it for him as well as the fans. But there really is no feeling like getting to Wembley.

“A lot of players never get there; some players who play at the top level never get there. I asked my lads to put their hands up in the dressing room who hasn’t been there and nearly all their hands went up. Getting to Wembley means everything to them and it means everything to me.”

York would appear to have an excellent chance of making it third time lucky at the new Wembley after losing the 2009 FA Trophy final 2-0 to Stevenage Borough and the 2010 Conference play-off final 3-1 to Oxford United.

They will play a Newport side who won 3-1 on aggregate in the other semi-final against Wealdstone but who are struggling in the Conference; the Welsh club are in 19th place, just one point above the relegation zone.

However, Mills refutes any suggestion the final will be a foregone conclusion.

“If you look at the League table some people might say we’re favourites, but I don’t agree with that,” he said. “A Wembley final is a Wembley final and a one-off game.

“It’s a level playing field as far as I’m concerned and we will have to be at our best to win it.

“We certainly won’t take Newport for granted.”