Gareth Andrew has been promoted four times but the Worcestershire all-rounder believes surviving in Division One of the LV = County Championship in 2011 was the best achievement of his career – in what was also his most prolific campaign.
Andrew can take the confidence of being runner-up in the Professional Cricketers' Association Most Valuable Player ratings three years ago into the county's next season in the top flight in 2015.
He scored more than 600 Championship runs and picked up 52 wickets as Director of Cricket Steve Rhodes' side defied the bookmakers odds and stayed up before returning to Division Two for 2013.
Andrew said: "This is my fourth promotion to the First Division, one with Somerset and now three with Worcestershire.
"But 2011, was the best year when we managed to stay up, by the skin of our teeth on the last day of the season at Durham.
"It was a good year. I think the best year to date for myself individually but also for the team.
"Quite a few of us had good years, and Richo (Alan Richardson) took loads of wickets.
"There was – and is – strong opposition, lots of big teams with good international players to contend with, but we stayed up. "
Andrew came second to Somerset skipper and former team-mate Marcus Trescothick in the MVP ratings that season.
He said: "I think it was literally down to the last game. Trescothick had scored millions of runs that year and he and I were going at it.
"He run away with it going into the last game. But I managed to get second.
"In the last two or three years, I came second and Moeen (Ali) won it in 2013. Mitch (Daryl Mitchell) started off really strongly this last season and finished just outside the top 10.
"It is good for the club to have guys in those top few positions."
Andrew is hoping to be fully fit for next season after his fine start in 2014 – 20 wickets in four Championship games – was cut short by a fracture in the pedicle of his back.
He said: "I've just got over a centimetre of the fracture to heal so that's half the size of two months ago.
"In four weeks it should all be healed and then looking forward I'll have another scan just to make sure everything is all ready to go and start bowling then in the New Year.
"I've been training already, it's like my winter already, the last few weeks. I've been working with Ross Dewar (fitness and conditioning coach) and I'll just keep on doing that, tick over through October and then we hit the ground running in November."
