When Graham Alexander netted from the penalty spot in a 3-0 win over Luton last season, a tiny little boxed will have been ticked in the mind of the Club captain - it was his 100th career goal and also a goal against his former club.
Nine years on from leaving Kenilworth Road and Grezza could be about to tick another of those boxes in his list of targets and ambitions. If Graham plays against Colchester today then he will join a very select band of players to have made 400 appearances for Preston North End.
We spoke to PNE's very own marathon man.
Graham, you are in your ninth season at Preston North End, has time flown by in those years?
It has gone quickly to be honest. If you are enjoying yourself I suppose it does go quickly, I've enjoyed every minute of it and hopefully I will be here for a bit longer.
Has it helped that you've been a mainstay in the side through all those years?
I've played a lot of games in a short space of time and I'm fortunate enough to have been picked by all the managers and held on to my place. When you come into the game as a kid it's not the trappings that come with it, it's the playing of the games in front of the crowds and enjoying your football and that's what I enjoy more than anything. Just being out there on a Saturday and being a part of the first team squad and I've been fortunate enough to do that.
A measure of how much you love the game comes with the fact that you always seem to be one of the last to leave the training pitch.
It's the only thing I've ever wanted to do and it's the only thing that I have been good at. The best part of the job is being out on the pitch. As long as I can stay out there then I want to stay out there, there's a few of the boys that do it and stay around, whatever the activity is, whether it be shooting, crossing, whatever, I'll take part in it. Over the years I've always done that and I think it improves your technique and improves the quality that you have got. It's a means to an end but if you enjoy it then it helps and I do enjoy kicking a ball around.
That must also help your longevity in the game?
If you don't enjoy it then it can make a big difference having to come in every day and playing football. If you love the game and a lot of the lads I have come across do, then the best part of the job is being out on the pitch and enjoying the week with your mates. To be honest, you leave school at 16 and you stay a kid for 20 years, that's the way I see it, it's just a carry on from my childhood, I'm playing football with my mates and that's how I look at it.
It might be hard for some fans to grasp but not all footballers actually enjoy playing the game.
Nothing against them, there are players who see it as a job. It's not a negative thing, it can help them when they go away from the game and they can switch off from it. There's a lot of players who are different to that, I am one of them who if I am quiet at home, my missus knows that I am thinking about something that happened in a game or even in training. She knows what I'm thinking about and she has a go at me sometimes for that but it's just the way I've always been since a little boy, football, football football.
When you signed for Preston North End many said that we had got you in the prime of your career. Well that prime time has certainly lasted a few years!
I got told as a kid that I was a late developer. I was a skinny wee thing, about nine stone, I'm not that much bigger now but I was always a little bit behind physically and maybe that's helped me as I've got older, I'm still playing like a 25-year-old. I feel good physically and touch wood I've been quite lucky with injuries, if that stays the case then I can play for a good few years yet.
Paul Simpson has gone on record to say that if you want time off from training during the week you can have it, but you are not the type of player to want that.
I'm not really. I love being around the Football Club, this is my environment and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. The banter, talking about football, thinking about football, playing football, my life does tend to revolve around that. My family is just as important to me, my wife and my kids and that but the reason that I was put on this earth was to play football, it sounds really corny but that's how I look at it.
Can you see yourself extending your career into management?
Yes definitely. I don't know if it's management but definitely coaching. I started taking my coaching badges a year ago, I've passed my UEFA B licence in the summer and I definitely want to carry along them lines. I'm qualified and ready for when I do have to hang my boots up but I'm not actually looking to do it now, I've looking to get qualified now so that I am ready in a few years time for when there is a manager that will take me on. I love the football environment and I can't see myself doing anything else.
When you are lying in bed at night do think to yourself what type of manager Graham Alexander would be?
Yes, I think so. As you get older and later into your career you've obviously worked with a lot of managers, you've played with a lot of players and probably been at different clubs and you take on board all the positives and negatives. I'm doing it now but even in my 20s I was thinking about it, I'd probably make a lot of wrong choices but if you learn from what goes on and you keep your eyes and ears open as you go through your career then you can take on board the good things. If you do get the opportunity to do it when you are older then I think that's good. It's a side of the game that interests me, I've yet to experience it from the other side of the line but hopefully that's a good few years down the line and not just around the corner.
Is it fair to say that the Preston North End public might have taken you for granted a little bit because of where you came from and how long you have been here?
I don't think I get taken for granted. Obviously if you have been at a club a long time and the familiarity of being here for so long, people can often think that the grass is greener or that somebody else can do a better job. Paul McKenna might have had the same thing, but all I try to do is impress the manager all the time, keep the respect of the team-mates that I am playing with by being a good player and team-mate and that's my career. There's only one person that I need to impress that I'm a good player and that's the manager. It is good to get the respect of the fans and I feel that I have got that but I don't read too much into other things that go on outside, I'm confident in what I can do for a football club and for the team.
You do see the other side of things when you go away with Scotland though with the passion and worship you get north of the border?
We do now, it wasn't like that a couple of years ago when we were getting beat all the time. It was quite tough, the players that were involved under Berti Vogts, it was a hard time, we got some stick because we had some bad results. From when Walter Smith took over and I got brought back into the squad I think the respect levels have gone up for the players. On a personal level I feel it myself, because I have been picked by three different managers for Scotland and there is a bit more respect for me on a personal level. I've actually earned my place in the squad where I could have been written off as someone's bad pick but if you play for successive managers I think it give you a little bit more respect from the press and the supporters that's something that I have enjoyed. The Scotland thing is a massive thing, every game is a massive game, even if it is a friendly, you are still representing your country and you are still playing for your next cap. I love every game that I play for Scotland, it's just an extension of being at Preston but it's also a little bit of a step-up.
Do you know how long you can go on for? If you body hasn't given you any indication then it must be difficult to know?
I don't know, circumstances change over the years and you can never look too far into the future. Injuries can hit you when you are 35 as much as they can when you are 25, it's a matter of keeping fit, I try to do that because it is a big part of the game now. If I can stay fit then hopefully I've got a good few years but you never know what is around the corner in football. In my mind I want to play for another three or four years at least, you see Teddy Sheringham playing at 41 at this level and there are a few others, Gary Speed's a couple of years older than me, David Weir at Scotland is a year-and-a-half older than me. I look at players like that and think if they can do it then why not me. I've got no thoughts of the end at the moment and hopefully that will continue.
The ambition of the Premier League must remain high on your list of things to do before you retire?
A big thing with me is that everything that is good that has happened to me has come late to me in my career, since the day I signed for Preston, not much had happened to me in my career before that. I'd had eight seasons of mediocrity, of not really doing anything, I came here and I've had eight years of enjoyment and really going for things. It's opened my eyes to things that I can achieve, I never thought that I could achieve international football and I have done, being captain of a side is a massive thing for me as well. There are still ambitions there for me and there are targets for me to hit and I'm still chasing them, I'd like to think that Premier League is the big one but there are other things that I want to achieve and as long as that continues then it keeps the fire burning in your belly and that helps you get along.
What are these other targets?
I don't like talking about them because people get it in their heads. Last season I wanted to get to 100 goals which I got to but there are little things that I want to achieve and be a part of, little targets that I want to keep setting myself. When I got back in the Scotland squad I thought that if I can get to 25 caps then that would be great and then as soon as I did that I set myself 30 which is my target now. You've got to keep chasing things, I don't think there is a player in the world that has ever achieved everything
We're not going to see you in ten years time trying to break the world record for appearances are we?
Why not! Romario's doing it! I don't know, I'm just going to play as long as I can, however long that is and at whatever level that is, I don't know. While I'm enjoying it and I love coming into training every day then hopefully I can do it. But all the little targets are in my head and I will keep them to myself just so that I can keep stoking the fire in my belly.
