Preston North End F.C.

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Template:Football club infobox Preston North End Football Club is a professional English football team. It currently (2005-2006) plays in the Football League Championship.

Nicknamed the "Lilywhites", "North End" or simply "PNE", the club is based at the Deepdale ground in the city of Preston, Lancashire.

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Invincibles

Image:PNE The Invincibles.jpg Formed in 1881 and one of the founding members of the Football League in 1888, scoring the first goal against Burnley, winning 5-2 on 8th September 1888. Preston North End won the first league championship (1888-89) and became the first club to achieve the 'double' of winning the FA Cup (1889, beating Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-0) and the Football League championship in the same season. This double was even more extraordinary in that the league was won without a single defeat, a feat which would not be repeated in the top division until 2003-04 (by Arsenal). Equally impressive was that the cup was won without conceding a single goal.

The photo has the Preston's chairman and manager, Major William Sudell (back row, fifth from the left, who led the struggle for professionalism. He was responsible for giving "The Football League" its name and was its first treasurer. John Goodall (front row, centre) was the star of the side, winning 14 caps for England and was often nicknamed "Johnny Allgood".

During this period the team was nicknamed "The Invincibles" and featured a collection of local and Scottish players renowned for their eccentric behaviour. One centre forward used to walk his fox on the pitch during half time.

In 1887, Preston set the record score for a competitive football game in England, winning 26-0 against Hyde United in the FA Cup.

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Tom Finney

Preston's most famous player is the legendary Tom Finney, one of England's finest ever forwards who combined playing throughout his long career for his home town club with running a successful plumbing business. Finney scored 30 times for England, in the company of such greats as Stanley Matthews who starred for local rivals Blackpool F.C. Finney retired as a player in 1960 but remains close to the club and still serves as Club President. Sir Tom Finney (knighted in 1998) remains a legendary figure at PNE and the "Splash" statue, based on the award winning ‘Splash' photograph of Sir Tom playing against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in August 1956, has been created by artist Peter Hodgekinson and takes a prominent position outside the ground at Deepdale. North End are now guarenteed a playoff place for the 2005/2006 season after cruising past Wolverhampton Wanderers and securing at least 6th spot in the Coca Cola Championship. They will play either Crystal Palace, Watford FC or Leeds United AFC in the round-robin end of season knockout known as the playoffs. The winning team will qualify for the Premiership, and recieve the biggest payoff for a single game in world football. Up the whites.

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League History

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Continued Success

Well after the illustrious nineteenth century Preston remained one the major teams in English football. They played in the top two divisions of the League continuously until 1970. They also won the FA Cup in 1938, beating Huddersfield Town 1-0, the same scoreline that they had been beaten by the Yorkshire side in the 1922 final.

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Cliff Britton

Cliff Britton became manager in 1956. In the next five years, Preston flirted with winning the League championship and Britton laid the foundations of a solid youth policy. Britton took the decision that would cause Tom Finney to play some of the best football of his life. At the age of 34, Finney was made centre-forward, where he was also to play three games for England. Finney was a revelation, scoring 23 goals the 1956-57 season and Preston finished third in the First Division. The next season they went one better - runners-up to Champions Wolves. However after Finney's retirement North End were relegated from the First Division at the end of the 1960/61 season and so Britton resigned.

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The Cup Final

North End reached the FA Cup Final in the 1963-64 season, losing to West Ham 3-2 after a titantic struggle in front of a 100,000 capacity crowd. In that match, Howard Kendall became the youngest player at that time to play in the final.

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Decline

After spending the Sixties in the Second Division, Preston were relegated to the Third Division in 1970 for the first time ever, although they did win promotion a season later. But Preston soon slid into decline and were relegated to the Fourth Division at the end of the 1984-85 season. The following season they finished third from bottom in the Fourth Division and were saved from relegation to the Conference only when league members voted in favour of them and three other league clubs rather than Conference champions Enfield.

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Up... then down again

Preston won promotion back to the Third Division with John McGrath in 1987, but were relegated from the renamed Division Two in 1993. It was under new manager Gary Peters that a more permanent revival was started: Preston won promotion from Division Three in 1996, under the captaincy of Ian Bryson amid emotional scenes at their Deepdale home. Peters' reign is also noteable for the League debut of a young David Beckham, making five appearances on loan and scoring two goals before being recalled by Manchester United.

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On the way back?

Preston then continued to prosper under manager David Moyes who arrived in February 1998, and who clinched promotion to Division One in 1999-2000 - their first appearance in the upper tier of the Football League for almost 30 years. The first season at this level was a considerable success. They finished fourth and reached the play-off final, losing 3-0 to Bolton Wanderers. Moyes left the following March to take charge of Everton, and was succeeded by former Scottish national coach Craig Brown. The club did not do well under Brown's management and he was sacked in 2004. Ex-Motherwell boss Billy Davies then took over. The relatively inexperienced Davies surprised all the observers by guiding Preston to a fifth-place finish in the Coca-Cola League Championship and a place in the play-offs. They beat a weakened Derby County team in the play-off semi final but they lost the play-off final 1-0 to West Ham, who had only secured 6th place on the last day of the season.

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Plastic Pitch

Preston introduced a controversial plastic pitch in the mid 1980s, a move as unpopular with the fans as it was with visiting teams. The pitch was used for the last time against Torquay at the end of the 1993-4 season in the second leg of the play-off semi-finals. Losing 2-0 from the first leg, North End needed to score four goals after Torquay scored an early goal at Deepdale. Seconds from the final whistle Paul Raynor hit North End's fourth to clinch a place at Wembley, where North End went down 4-2 to Wycombe Wanderers despite an impressive overhead kick by Ian Bryson. The plastic pitch was ripped up by thousands of excited North End fans after the semi-final, who grabbed the opportunity to take a piece of history home.

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Deepdale

Preston has continued to play at Deepdale since its foundation. Deepdale is the oldest, continuously used League ground in the world, with the first game being played in 1878. Today Deepdale has been refurbished extensively with the new Bill Shankly, Tom Finney and Alan Kelly (Town End) stands. Deepdale is also the home of the National Football Museum which is the first and largest major football museum in the world. Deepdale was selected as its home because of Preston was instrumental in helping to change the game, from a sport played by gentlemen amateurs, to a game played by paid professionals.

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Current squad

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Honours

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Famous players

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External links

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Official website

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Other sites

Template:Football League Championship teamlist
Football in England (Women's)
League competitions The FA Cup competitions
FA Premier League England (men) FA Cup (Women's)
The Football League (Champ, 1, 2) (women) League Cup
Football Conference (Nat, N, S) List of clubs FA Community Shield
Northern Premier League (Prem, 1) List of venues Football League Trophy
Southern League (Prem, 1W, 1E) (by capacity) FA Trophy
Isthmian League (Prem, 1, 2) List of leagues FA Vase
English football league system Records FA NLS Cup

Template:Original Football League clubsde:Preston North End F.C. es:Preston North End Football Club fr:Preston North End Football Club it:Preston North End he:פרסטון נורת' אנד nl:Preston North End FC no:Preston North End FC simple:Preston North End F.C. sv:Preston North End FC zh:普雷斯顿足球俱乐部

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