If Preston North End are looking for a good luck omen as the season approaches it’s exciting climax they may have just got one in the form of goalkeeper Carlo Nash.

The 6’5 strapping goalkeeper was a deadline day signing from Middlesbrough 12 days ago, he’s the final piece in Preston North End’s jigsaw for the 2004/05 campaign and after tasting promotion to the Premiership with both Manchester City and Crystal Palace in recent years he is a goalkeeper aiming for a hat-trick with North End this year.

Nash was a member of Kevin Keegan’s squad which took this division by storm three seasons ago but more importantly he has got to the Premiership via the play-offs in his first ever season in league football with Crystal Palace.

It is the experience of that Wembley play-off final win that PNE boss Billy Davies will be hoping that Nash can bring to the fore.

“Hopefully it will pay dividends,” Nash told the PNE matchday programme this week.

“I’ve been in this situation twice before once I got automatic promotion with City and previous to that I was with Crystal Palace when they won promotion via the play offs so hopefully those experiences will stand me in good stead for the end of the season.

“It’s important that I use my experience to help others around me. Because I’ve been there before I know what will be going through their minds and really it’s up to me and the other senior players to calm a few nerves if there are any and hopefully everyone will be fine.”

Nash has yet to have a full week’s training with his new team-mates, he only joined in properly on Tuesday of last week after the extended Easter weekend break and his first opportunity to meet his new colleagues was at a session of ten-pin bowling.

“It’s not a bad start to a new club really, we went bowling on Thursday and then we were off till Tuesday, it has been quite an easy start really but we have been working really hard since I came back in.

“I’m back to earth now we returned to training on the Tuesday and then we had the rest of the week building up to the Gillingham game.

“The training has been brilliant, much the same as what I am used to, Pete Williams takes the goalkeepers and we do a lot of work with him before and then we do some work with the gaffer and the rest of the lads.

“It takes a bit of getting used to because I don’t really know how each player performs and it is just up to me to manage that and getting them playing as I want them to play in front of me. Every keeper is different and it will take a little bit of time to get used to but hopefully we will get it right quickly.

“The lads have all been quite polite to me at the moment, I’m still waiting for a bit of a backlash but they are a good set of lads and they have made me feel right at home.”

Once Nash does get into the swing of things he won’t have too much of a honeymoon period as the North End squad are in the middle of a intense period of high-pressure games to reach the play-offs.

It’s a situation Carlo is more than aware of.

“Every game is a big game from now until the end of the season, we have just got to aim as high as we can and hopefully if we can get into the play-offs at the end of the season then who knows from there.

“We are just taking each game as it comes, we are trying to get the results and if we do that then we will have done well.

“Every game is going to be a tough game, mentally as well as physically but we have just got to be strong and get the results.”

For Nash the move to Deepdale is almost something of a return to his home roots, as a Bolton born lad the big keeper started his career at non-league Clitheroe.

“It’s great to be here. I was brought up in Bolton and spent a lot of my teenage years there. I played in Bolton town team and played at Deepdale when there was a plastic pitch so I do know the area quite well and it’s a great chance for me to come back here – back to my roots if you like.

“I started my career playing for Clitheroe and working as a Sales Manager selling office equipment in Blackburn and then the Chairman rang me up a week after the FA Vase final and just said Crystal Palace have offered £35,000 for you, do you want to speak to them? So I thought that if I don’t go down now I’ll never know, so I went down and spoke to Harry Bassett and the rest is history.”

Whilst Nash is very much a part of Palace’s and Manchester City’s recent history it is the thought of completing a promotion hat-trick which is exciting North End’s latest recruit.

“I was in the same situation in the play-offs when I just started at Crystal Palace so I know what it’s all about and it’s a great position to be in. I’ve been keeping my eye on the Championship league and I know they’ve been doing well and I knew they had a great chance of going up. The play-offs are a bit of a lottery so obviously the first aim is to get in there and we’ll take it from there and hopefully we can push on and get promotion.

“Preston were always been there or there-abouts even when I was at Stockport and they were always a great side to play against. I know what great sides they’ve had over the past years so I think the squad that we’ve got at the moment and obviously with Billy at the helm we’ve got a great future ahead of us. We need to take each step as it comes and hopefully we’ll get promotion this year.”

Training and playing with Preston North End will be like a breath of fresh air to the No.33, he has had to endure a couple of seasons as understudy to one of the Premiership’s most consistent stoppers in Middlesbrough’s Mark Schwarzer.

“It has been very frustrating for me because obviously I want to play, I don’t want to sit on the bench every week. Obviously at Middlesbrough when I signed I knew it’d be tough for me because Mark Schwarzer is a great keeper and unless he got injured I wouldn’t really be getting a shout. I don’t look back and regret that move and see it as an integral part of my career as the training and facilities there enabled me to push forward and get better as a player as well as in the fitness department. Hopefully I can put into practice what I’ve learnt over the last two years.

“Billy Davies has done well this season to get Preston where they are and when he rang me up he made me feel at ease. He obviously he wanted me to sign here and thought I’d be great asset to the team so he more or less convinced me – if I needed any convincing to sign.

“There was a few more clubs interested but not at this present time and the factor for me was that Preston really wanted to sign me and I saw it as an opportunity to play in the Championship and with the position they’re in hopefully get promotion.”