By Pete Oliver

Gary Mills returned to Tamworth in last year (Getty Images)

Gary Mills is already a European Cup winner and wants to add an FA Trophy success to his roll of honour.

Mills was part of the Nottingham Forest side that beat Hamburg to become European champions in 1980.

Now in his second spell as manager of Tamworth, his focus is on preparing his side to take on Aldershot Town in the quarter-finals of the Trophy.

"You move on, the European Cup was fantastic and you can never take that away," Mills told BBC Sport.

"It's great to talk about it and I still live in Nottingham and bump into old fans.

"This is an opportunity to get to an FA Trophy final and win it and it would be superb to talk about that in 25 years� time," Mills added.

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Having won the top honour in club football and played at Wembley six times during a career which included two spells with Forest, two with Notts County and a lengthy stay with Leicester City, Mills has experienced most things in football.

But returning to Wembley with Tamworth remains a big incentive.

He added: "To take a side there as a manager would be fantastic.

"That's the carrot, we are two games away from that.

"We are not satisfied with the quarter-finals. We have done well to get there but we want to go all the way. We don't want to stop at that.

"What we don't want it to turn into 'they are a good side and we weren't expected to win.' We want to get a result and we can get it if we want it."

We are not going to win the FA Cup, but we can win the FA Trophy Gary Mills

Rather than the old 'one game at a time' mantra, Mills has used the prospect of a trip down Wembley Way as a source of motivation throughout a cup run that has seen the mid-table Blue Square North side beat Stalybridge, Hucknall, Blyth Spartans and Stafford Rangers.

"I have said since we won our first game at Stalybridge that Wembley is the incentive and that we can get there," said Mills.

"When you play in the FA Cup the incentive is the first round proper. We are not going to win the FA Cup, but we can win the FA Trophy.

"That's what I have said in every round so far. It does not faze me to say that to the players."

Tamworth, the only survivors from outside non-league football's top flight in the last-eight of the competition, will be underdogs when they host the Blue Square Premier leaders on Saturday.

However, Mills is determined that his side will not be Lambs to the slaughter with former Birmingham City youngster Nick Wright aiming to become only the second player in Tamworth�s history to net three successive hat-tricks when he faces the Shots.

Mills said: "It will be a tough game as they are doing very well.

"I watched them last Sunday (a 3-1 win over Stevenage) and I wish I hadn't! But no two games are the same.

Gary Mills won the European Cup at the age of 18 (Getty Images)

"If we play how we can play and how we have done over the last eight games, apart from one, we have got a chance."

Trophy finalists at Villa Park in 2003, Tamworth previously won the FA Vase in 1989 and in recent seasons have developed a reputation as FA Cup giant-killers, collecting wins over Bournemouth and Hartlepool.

Cup football seems to bring the best out of a team which was relegated last season and is being rebuilt by Mills, who was appointed last January, in his second spell at the club.

His first successful stay ended in 2002 when he left to become first-team coach at Coventry City before a stint as Notts County manager.

By his own admission he did not get things right at the start of the current campaign but with six wins in their last eight games his squad - which includes ex-Nottingham Forest defender Des Lyttle and former Scunthorpe midfielder Gareth Sheldon - is starting to click.

Mills wants Tamworth to be ready when the chance to return to the Blue Square Premier comes. But in the meantime, FA Trophy glory would provide a more than memorable stop-gap.

"It's lovely, particularly this season when our league form has been poor," Mills added.

"It doesn't really look like we are going to get in the play-offs, so this is massive for us."