PETER Cavanagh just needed a minute.

When all around him Accrington Stanley players, management and supporters were celebrating the club’s long-awaited return to the Football League on the pitch at Woking the Reds skipper headed down the tunnel to the changing rooms.

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It had been a long season and a tough year - both on and off the pitch.

Cavanagh’s brother Anthony died in October 2005 as a result of injuries sustained in an attack on a night out in Liverpool city centre.

It made the promotion Cavanagh and Stanley achieved six months later all the more poignant.

“At full time I just remember going into the changing room while everyone else was still on the pitch just to get a moment to myself,” said Cavanagh, speaking to the Lancashire Telegraph 10 years on from the 1-0 win at Woking which secured League Two football.

“It had been an emotional year for me that year with my brother dying and I just wanted a moment of contemplation really.

“It was a tough year for me and I think all the lads had this thing of let’s do it for my brother and in the end we did.

“I had been in the changing room a few minutes when someone came in and just said ‘come on get out there, you’ve got to enjoy the moment’.”

The win at Woking was secured thanks to a Paul Mullin strike and, with three games still to play, Stanley could celebrate promotion.

Cavanagh always felt the day would come.

“We always knew we going to do it that year I think, it was weird,” he said. “I think it was just fate.

“It just felt like we were going to be successful.

“We got a really good group of players and we brought some very good players in on loan.

“It was a great team and a really great season.”

Stanley were certainly not favourites ahead of the campaign. Hereford United, who eventually won promotion through the play-offs, big-spending Grays Athletic, Exeter, York City and Stevenage were all expected to challenge in what was a testing division.

But Cavanagh had a feeling.

“It was a great team, we had a great team spirit,” he added. “It was a squad full of complete basket cases but we all got on.

“A lot of us were a similar sort of age and even the older lads were great as well.

“John Coleman and Jimmy Bell were superb and you have also got to hand it to Eric Whalley for making it possible for us to bring in good players.

“We just had the right recipe of good players plus team spirit and it paid off for us.”

There were plenty of milestones along the way as Stanley pieced together a 23-game unbeaten run in the middle of the season to pull clear of the pack.

In the midst of that was a 3-1 win at Exeter in front of the television cameras which Cavanagh felt was a huge turning point on the promotion path.

“I think everyone thought we had the league sewn up when we went to Exeter on a Monday night on Sky and beat them to open up a little bit of a gap,” he recalls.

“We were on a great run at that time and just had a little dip towards the end but we managed to get over the line. It was certainly one of my career highlights.”

Stanley travelled to Woking, backed by a large away following, on a run of just one win in six games but Mullin’s goal and keeper Rob Elliot’s penalty heroics saw them over the line.

Then the celebrations could begin.

“The day itself was all a bit surreal,” Cavanagh adds. “We had just had a bit of a stumble in the few games before just as we were trying to get over the line. But at that time in the season it was all about the result.

“We were probably a bit fortunate to win that day, they had a penalty which Rob Elliott saved twice (it was re-taken) and then we got the goal through Paul Mullin.

“In the end we just about hung on for the win. We took a lot of fans down there and it was a great atmosphere.

“At full time you were mingling with the fans and quite a few of them you would know by name.

“When I first started playing for Accrington you would have 30 fans on the coach to games so you got to know them.

“It was a real family club and we were all able to celebrate together. I had obviously been there a while and I think it did mean maybe more to me because I was there at the start. There was a couple of others as well like Robbie Williams and it was just great to see that journey come to an end with promotion.”

It is a journey Stanley could repeat this season, with the Reds in an automatic promotion place in League Two ahead of the home clash with Morecambe on Saturday.

“It would be great if Stanley were able to go up this season,” said Cavanagh who now coaches Everton under-10s.

“I think they have got a great chance. I still speak to John Coleman from time to time and I do think they can get in that top three.

“If they do end up in the play-offs I don’t think anyone will want to play them. They will be the team to avoid but I honestly believe they can get in the top three.

“That would be great for the club and I would love to see it happen.”