MONDAY, May 31, 1993. It is a date which will always be etched into the memory of any Swindon Town fan.

A game that has since made plenty of countdowns of the best football games in history.

Leicester were the opponents for Town at Wembley after the Robins had overcome Tranmere Rovers 5-4 on aggregate in the Barclays League Division One play-off semi finals.

“The play-off final was an incredible game,” said Hoddle as he remembered one of his greatest achievements as a football manager.

“Wembley is always such a special place to play.

“It was a wonderful occasion to see the whole of one end in red and white.”

It was Hoddle who opened the scoring for Swindon three minutes before the half-time break, with a fine strike from the edge of the box.

Goals from Craig Maskell and Shaun Taylor just eight minutes after the restart put Town in a commanding position and one foot through the door into the Premier League.

“We started like a house on fire really,” said Hoddle, reliving the moment.

“I managed to get my old legs wandering up towards their penalty area for once and scored and then we played some lovely, terrific football, got the second, got the third, and it is always a difficult thing when you are in control of a match.”

However, in the space of 12 minutes in north-west London the game turned on its head and goals from Julian Joachim, Steve Walsh and Steve Thompson had the East Midlands side back on level terms.

Hoddle did not panic. Instead he took advantage of his unique position of being a player-manager to rally his side.

It was a moment of genius from the midfielder as he found substitute Steve White with an inch-perfect pass The forward was clattered into by goalkeeper Kevin Poole, and Paul Bodin converted the penalty to send Swindon up.

“I remember Leicester put a big centre-half up, they put two big subs on, and they went long and went direct and put big players on the pitch and caused us all sorts of problems aerially and the next thing you know it was 3-3,” he added.

“It was an amazing game really, to think that we may have lost it after being in control.

“I think that is where I was lucky in a sense; I was a player-manager.

“I was out there as a manager and I could affect the players and it was a mental effect.

“I remember trying to get around all the players when it went to 3-3 and just really make eye contact with them and enforce to them ‘there is no way we are getting beat, we’ve got to go again,’ but you don’t get that opportunity when you are on the sidelines.

“It was a big thing, I really did engage them.

“I perhaps didn’t get to the front two because I was playing at the back, but every other player I tried to just touch base with quickly when the ball was dead and say ‘look we’ve got to get our heads up and we’re going to win this game, we’ve got to make sure we win this’.

“We drove forward and managed to win it. It was a hell of a game.”

Highlights from the 1992/133 Division One play-off final

Much like the Swindon team of today, Hoddle had his players playing a certain way and he was reluctant to change that.

He had faith that what had worked all season would continue to work and his belief was rewarded with the ultimate prize.

“That was our principle and why would we change?” he added.

“We couldn’t change anyway; we didn’t have the personnel to do that.

“On the odd occasion when we were losing matches we might have put Shaun Taylor up there for the last five minutes of the game.

“I always felt at 3-3 that they had given everything to come back at us.

“I just felt if we kept getting the ball down and played around them that we would open them up and we managed to do that with the penalty in the end. It was a fabulous day.”