"I had a tremendous time and it was great to be part of a club with a rich tradition," is Paul Raynor's assessment of his spell with Preston North End.

The versatile attacker enjoyed just over two seasons at Deepdale in the mid 90s having joined from Cambridge United for £16,000.

A popular player amongst the fans, he is probably most remembered for his involvement in events on a memorable night at Deepdale in May 1994 when Preston overturned a 2-0 first leg defeat against Torquay to cement their place in the Division Three Play-Off Final.

Looking back on that famous victory over the Gulls, Raynor recalled: "The away leg was very disappointing, we didn't really function on the day, we gave ourselves a mountain to climb and I don't think anybody really gave us a chance. But the nice thing was that the fans stayed with us and for the second leg they packed Deepdale out.

"It was probably the most memorable game I will ever play in and it was an incredible evening. I've played in front of bigger crowds that was on that night but the atmosphere was electric, the fans wanted us to win, they willed us to Wembley and thankfully we delivered that for them and I was lucky enough to get the winner.

"From what I remember, the Gaffer had stuck me up front for that game having played in numerous positions including wide left and wide right. It was a ball crossed in by Andy Fensome, and I took a chance in the middle of the goal, headed it down and fortunately on that hard Astroturf pitch it bounced into the top corner.

"I must admit, I went delirious and everybody was diving on top of me. Then I cramped up and had to go off, so I went and sat in the dressing room and listened to the roars and groans from the crowd for a couple of minutes. My heart was in my mouth at times but as soon as I heard the final whistle I came running out.

"We always believed we could do it, John Beck was very clever with his reverse psychology and told us we had no chance and that he had already booked his holiday. He was a very astute man and he gave us the desire to put things right. To score four goals like we did was fantastic, but we couldn't have done it without the fans."

Aside from his winning goal, Raynor was involved in a well talked about incident with Darren Moore which led to the dismissal of the big centre-half and effectively swung the tie in North End's favour.

Paul added: "I still get stick now, we played Torquay earlier in the season in the Trophy quarter-final and I had two-and-half thousand people effing and blinding at me! Earlier in the season we were at Derby's ground training prior to a game and I saw Darren, I shook his hand and he had a grin on his face.

"It was an incident; the referee saw it and he decided there was sufficient contact for him to receive a red card. It worked in our favour on the night but people make a lot out of it. There was certainly intent and it's a good job he didn't catch me properly because he'd have knocked my head off."

After the elation of the second leg at Deepdale, the Lilywhites couldn't grind out the result at Wembley which would have ensured promotion to the Second Division. It was a bittersweet occasion for Raynor who netted in the 4-2 defeat to Wycombe Wanderers.

He recalled: "We didn't really perform on the day, we had gone to Wycombe three or four weeks prior and got a reasonable result. We fancied our chances and it was shame because there were 30,000 Preston supporters and they deserved to get promotion.

"It was a proud moment to score at Wembley, my family were there and it is something I will always remember. The sad thing is with the Play-Offs is that you don't get to go up the steps when you lose and that always sticks in my mind. I'm sure there are thousands upon thousands of players that will never get to play there but the disappointing aspect of the experience was that we couldn't do it on the day."

The conclusion of that season signalled the end of plastic pitch at Deepdale but Raynor, in some respects was sad to see the astroturf surface ripped up.

"Football should be played on grass, let's not beat around the bush," he explained. "But as a forward and wide player though, I liked it because defenders were always a little bit wary of going to ground and it used to give attackers the slight advantage.

"We had some tremendous attacking players at the club then in Gareth Ainsworth, who has gone on to play hundreds of Championship games. There was also Tony Ellis who scored a lot of goals that season along with Micky Conroy. But we also had fantastic defenders who were willing to get the grass burns and take the knocks."

The 41-year-old returned to former club Cambridge during the early stages of 1995/96 season in a swap deal for Dean Barrick. Although he had no misgivings about the transfer, he missed out on the glory of promotion at the end of the campaign.

He said: "Gary Peters was looking to bring a left-back in and I had the opportunity to move back to Cambridge, a club I had decent success with over the years. They wanted me, Gary was desperate for Dean Barrick and it just transpired that it suited both parties.

"Probably, in hindsight, I should have hung on in there because they got promoted that season and I had played the first ten or eleven games. But people make decisions, it might have been the wrong one, I have no regrets and I still did well at Cambridge after I moved."

Since hanging up his boots, Paul has moved into coaching and is now the Assistant Manager at Crawley Town. It's an ambition he has always wanted to fulfil simply because of his love for the game.

Raynor added: "I've always been gobby, always had an opinion and always spoke my mind. I just love the game, I still watch every match that's shown on the television so I have just got a real passion for football. I'm nearly 42 now, I've been in the game since I was 16-years-old and I still enjoy every day.

"Anybody that plays nearly 600 games hasn't had a bad career. I have been fortunate to have a career that I did something I love and I'm pleased that I'm still doing it. It has its ups and downs but I still have the urge to win on a Saturday afternoon."