GLENN Hoddle still rates promotion to the Premier League with Swindon Town as one of the best of his many considerable achievements.

The former Robins manager, who guided Town to the top flight through the Division One play-offs in 1993, won the UEFA Cup and the FA Cup with Tottenham and Ligue 1 and the French Cup with Monaco as a player before going on to hold the top job at Chelsea, Tottenham, Southampton and Wolves, as well as leading England at the 1998 World Cup.

Add into that equation his 53 international caps, dozens of memorable goals and a single in the UK top 40 and Hoddle’s remarkable CV becomes that little bit more impressive.

But the 54-year-old looks back on his time in Wiltshire with immense pride, and he told the Advertiser that the rebuilding job he undertook at Swindon - culminating in the famous 4-3 victory over Leicester in the play-off final at Wembley - remains one of his finest moments in football.

“I’ve got to say it was one of the happiest times I’ve had in football. I really enjoyed my time there,” he said.

“I think it’s up there with everything else I have done.

“If you think about it, we brought Lingy (Martin Ling) in for about £7,000, Dave Mitchell on a free, John Moncur for £60,000 from Tottenham - it’s up there with everything I’ve done in football because we had a limited budget and he had to coach these players into doing what we had in mind.

“It was an exciting time.”

When Hoddle arrived at the County Ground in the spring of 1991, Town were still suffering the after-effects of the financial scandal which erupted after a national newspaper revealed former chairman Brian Hillier had bet on Town winning Division Three in 1987 in an attempt to cover player bonuses.

The scandal revolved around illegal payments to players and Hillier, secretary Vince Farrar, manager Lou Macari and captain Colin Calderwood were arrested by the Inland Revenue and questioned on suspicion of tax fraud. It was a bad time to be a Town fan, as success in the 1989-90 play-offs was quickly followed by sanctions from the Football League.

Hillier would eventually serve jail time for his crime, but Swindon were affected just as badly on the pitch.

Hoddle turned up for his first day of work as a Robin with his new side lingering worryingly close to the relegation zone in Division One - then the second tier of English football.

It was a tough task for a rookie manager, and made all the more difficult considering Hoddle, by his own admission, did not realise the scale of the task at hand.

“I took over when Ossie Ardiles went to Newcastle. Peter Day (Town’s chief executive at the time) approached me as I was at Chelsea training to try and get over an injury. I felt it was a fantastic opportunity for me,” he said.

“It all happened so quickly that I didn’t realise they were fourth from bottom so that was a bit of a shock to me and John (Gorman, Hoddle’s assistant).

“We did not quite know where they were and we only had eight games of the season left to play, but that was a great way to get started and get into it.”

After a rough start to life in Wiltshire, with Town winning just two of his first eight games in the hotseat, Hoddle set about reassembling the jigsaw which had been blown apart more than 12 months previously.

In his first full season in charge, the player-boss guided Town to within one Duncan Shearer sale of a play-off place before securing Swindon’s first taste of top-flight football with promotion in 1992/93.

In that season, Hoddle believes he got his players playing the kind of free-flowing, aesthetically pleasing football that he could not match anywhere else during his managerial career.

“We were a bit unique because we played three at the back when we had possession and no one else had played that way then, so teams found it hard to play against us,” he said.

“We had good footballers and we got them playing well.

“It was pretty unique. A lot of people never realise and maybe only a few people inside football might, but when I was playing and we had Micky Hazard, John Moncur and Ross MacLaren we had four players almost playing naturally off both feet.

“That was just amazing to see and I don’t think I’ve ever had that anywhere else I’ve been, with that many players playing naturally off both feet.

“The way we played meant other teams did not quite know how to play with us.

“We had a limited budget and it was my first job as a manager, so to have been playing as we did still gives me a lot of pride.

“I tried to play in a similar way at Chelsea but had to change my opinion on the way I thought Chelsea could play because we did not have the style of players there.

“I brought in Ruud Gullit when I retired but we still had to come up with something different.

“I don’t think I ever played such attractive football as I did with Swindon.”

While he currently spends his time bouncing between media commitments and his Academy, Hoddle admitted he would consider a return to management if the right job offer presented itself.

His last spell as a manager, with Wolves, ended almost six years ago but he remains keen to find a route back into the game.

“If the right situation came up I would consider it,” he said. “If the right job came up and it was a good challenge.

“I’m always looking for a challenge in football. I’ve never had a job where everything has been put on a plate, and it would not have to be a job with millions of pounds to spend.”

Wherever he may go in the future, and whatever he may go on to achieve, it is clear that Hoddle’s two years in Wiltshire remain very close to his heart.