Tommy Lee is hell-bent on spoiling Stuart McCall's glorious return - even though he may not be able to go home afterwards!

Macclesfield's Keighley-born goalkeeper will be in the firing line when City aim to make a flying start to League Two at a vibrant Valley Parade on Saturday.

With over 12,000 season-tickets sold, the fans will be banking on McCall's men to deliver on day one. But Lee is happy to take on the role of party-pooper.

"I don't mind being public enemy number one," he said. "It would be a fantastic result for us if we could stop Bradford at their place. We know there's going to be a big crowd - my dad reckons half of Keighley is going because of me!

"Bradford away was the first game I looked out for when the fixtures came out and to get it for the opening day of the season was unbelievable.

"A lot of my friends support Bradford City so they've all been on for tickets and it's going to be a great atmosphere. But I obviously hope we can send their fans away disappointed."

The 21-year-old has played at Valley Parade only once before, in goal for Bradford Boys aged 12. Playing youth football for Oakworth Juniors, he was briefly on City's books before getting spotted by a Manchester United scout the following year.

Lee, a boyhood United fan, signed as a trainee and spent five seasons at Old Trafford without getting close to a senior outing.

He added: "It was disappointing to leave because I'd supported them all my life and I was training with the first team in my final year, which was a fantastic experience "But when you get to a certain age in football you've got to get games under your belt, especially as a goalkeeper. It's all very well sitting on the bench in the Premiership or Championship but you need to be playing.

"So I went on loan to Macclesfield the season before last for five months. It was a shock to the system for the first few weeks having to adapt to a club that had a lot of money problems and no real training ground but it was good to start playing at last."

Lee made the move permanent and started 35 times last season as Macclesfield, then under Paul Ince, pulled off an amazing fightback to stay in the league. Twelve points adrift at one stage, they recovered to survive with a draw on the final day.

"I'd grown up watching Paul Ince playing with Roy Keane in midfield and suddenly he was our new manager. He didn't change a lot but just instilled this huge confidence in us all.

"The players were good enough but we hadn't been performing and then he came in and got us playing like we should."

An FA Cup third-round trip to Chelsea was a welcome relief from fighting against the drop although Lee was red-carded for a professional foul on Andriy Shevchenko.

"He was already going down when I caught him. I suppose if you're going by the letter of the law then the referee was right to send me off.

"I'm over that now and it was still a fantastic experience to play in a game like that - that's the sort of place you want to be playing.

"But the main thing was that we managed to stay up. The last two or three weeks of the season were still very tense and I wouldn't want to go through that again.

"Hopefully though we can learn from that experience having showed we can cope with that sort of pressure situation. It should make us stronger this season."

The pressure will be on City this weekend and Lee warned: "We won't make it easy for them. This is a great game for us."

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