Paul Randall was born in Sefton, Liverpool. His mother, June was born in Dar es Salaam in the African country of Tanzania after her father had moved there to work.i.pinimg.com/originals/09/79/e3/0979e314b1f5a0a70f3518ffd2bd0fb1.jpgAfter she moved back to England and joined the British Army and whilst stationed in Aldershot she met his father, Ken who was a semi-professional footballer for the local team having previously been on the books at Everton.
Randall was offered a trial by Bristol City after he was spotted by Bristol City player Peter Spiring's dad who told their scout Jock Rae about Randall.
He played a few trial matches for the Robins but an offer did not materialise and he carried on playing for Glastonbury.
He also played for the Somerset school county team whose manager was former Bristol Rovers winger George Petherbridge.
He got Randall a trial at Rovers and after impressing in the trial match he was invited back to play in the youth team and 'A'-team matches but after a year he was released.
This rekindled the interest of Bristol Rovers whose manager Don Megson invited Randall to play some reserve games for the club.
He then left Glastonbury Town to join Frome Town and his second match for Frome was a friendly against Bristol Rovers.
He scored and impressed the watching Rovers management who informed him the next day that they wanted to sign him.
Rovers paid £1,000 to both Glastonbury and Frome and Randall left his job at the supermarket to become a professional footballer.
Randall's love of punk music earned him the nickname "Punky" amongst his Rovers teammates.
Randall continued his fine form scoring another hat-trick in a 5–5 draw against Charlton Athletic and also had a good game against Stoke City in a 0–0 draw.
He impressed the Stoke manager Alan Durban who decided to make a £180,000 bid for Randall which was accepted by Rovers.
As the 1979–80 season Randall started, Randall found himself in the reserves as Durban changed his team around.
He remained in and out of the side in 1979–80 and ended the season with 19 appearances and just one goal, scored as the team successfully avoided relegation.
As the 1980–81 season came around Randall was still out of favour with Alan Durban who informed Randall that he will be sold back to Bristol Rovers once they have generated enough funds.
Stoke accepted Bristol Rovers's offer of £55,000 and Randall left the Victoria Ground after scoring eight goals in 51 appearances.
Randall made his return to Bristol Rovers in January 1981 with the side struggling under the management of Terry Cooper and were bottom of the table.
His first match back came against local rivals Bristol City with ended in a drab 0–0 draw.
Terry Cooper was replaced with Bobby Gould. Gould quit in May 1983 to join Coventry and the board appointed David Williams as player-manager.
Bobby Gould returned as manager for the 1985–86 season. Results and performances were poor and with Gould failing to keep a settled line-up Randall found himself in the reserves.
He turned down a move to Dutch club NAC Breda in order to fight for his place at Rovers.
But he failed to convince Gould to play him so Randall handed in a transfer request which drew an offer from non-league Yeovil Town which was accepted.
Total Career Stats For BRFC and Stoke City only, Played 328, Goals 115
