Preston North End F.C.
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| Full name | Preston North End Football Club |
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| Nickname(s) | The Lilywhites, Northenders, Proud Preston PNE. |
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| Founded | 1881 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ground | Deepdale, Preston Lancashire, England (Capacity 21,000 approx.) |
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| Chairman |  Derek Shaw |
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| Manager |  Alan Irvine |
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| League | The Championship | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2007–08 | The Championship, 15th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Preston North End Football Club are an English professional football club located in the Deepdale area of the city of Preston, Lancashire, currently playing in the second tier of English league football, The Championship. They were the main founder member of the English Football League in 1888 and were the first English football champions.
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[edit] History
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In the past Preston were famously successful, being the first winners of "The Double" in English football. In 1888-89 Preston became the first, and only, team to go throughout an entire season unbeaten in both the league and FA Cup — only Arsenal F.C., in 2003-04, have managed to have an unbeaten season in the top division since. PNE were league champions again the following season, but have not won the title since. Their last major trophy was an FA Cup triumph in 1938.
Preston were relegated to the Second Division (currently the Football League Championship) in 1961 and have not played in the top division since. They did reach the FA Cup final in 1964, but lost to West Ham United.
Bobby Charlton, an England World Cup winner from 1966, was appointed Preston manager in 1973, but was unable to stop them from sliding into the Third Division in his first season and left after two years in charge. A brief respite in 1978 saw them win promotion back to the Second Division, but they went down after three seasons and in 1985 fell into the Fourth Division for the first time in their history.
In 1986, Preston finished second from bottom in the Fourth Division and only avoided dropping into the Gola League because the other Football League members voted in favour of the division's bottom four teams retaining their senior status.
The arrival of new manager John McGrath saw Preston win promotion to the Third Division a year later, and they were still at this level when McGrath left in 1990. Veteran player Les Chapman took over as manager, but left in October 1992 to be replaced by John Beck. The 38-year-old Beck had only recently been sacked by Cambridge United, where he had achieved two successive promotions and come within a whisker of attaining a unique third. Beck was unable to save Preston from relegation from the first season of the new Division Two. He endured a Division Three playoff final failure before quitting in 1994 to be replaced by his assistant Gary Peters
Peters guided Preston to Division Three title glory in his first full season as manager, and quit in February 1998 to be replaced by 34-year-old defender David Moyes. Preston quickly developed into Division Two promotion contenders under Moyes, reaching the 1998-99 playoffs (losing to Gillingham in the semi-finals before finally being promoted as champions a year later. They almost made it two promotions a row in 2001, but lost 3-0 to Bolton in the Division One final.
Moyes left for Everton in March 2002 and was succeeded by former Scottish national coach Craig Brown. Preston were little more than an unfashionable mid-table side during Brown's tenure, though they were never in any real danger of being relegated. He left in August 2004 to be succeeded by his assistant Billy Davies.
Davies guided Preston to the Championship playoff final in his first season as manager, but they lost to West Ham United. They reached the playoffs again the following year, this time losing in the semi-finals. Davies then moved to Derby and was replaced by Carlisle boss Paul Simpson, who took over Davies's team and initially carried on where Davies left off. Preston spent much of the 2006-07 season in the automatic promotion or playoff places, however from March 2007 the club went on an alarming slide down the league. This happened even after holding on to David Nugent in the transfer window and Simpson being allowed to bring in a number of loan signings. The club failed to make the end-of-season play-offs, despite a 1-0 victory over Birmingham City at Deepdale on the final day of the season. They finished the season in seventh place.
On 11 July 2007 David Nugent, the first Preston player to win an England cap for 50 years, left the club to join Portsmouth for a reported transfer fee of £6,000,000. Although the club lost only one key player (David Nugent) and brought in several players including Darren Carter, Kevin Nicholls and Karl Hawley, to reshape the team they did not recover from their poor run of form. In August 2007, Simpson banned the playing of, Elvis Presley's Can't Help Falling in Love, a song which had been a popular part of the pre-match music at Deepdale for over ten years, stating, "I don't know whose idea this song is at the start, because it seems to put everyone in a bit of a depression. We have to make sure we get something which the players respond to and go out and perform and the fans respond to as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we are losing games because of that song. But we have to do whatever we can to generate an atmosphere",[1] a move which angered some Preston fans.[citation needed] After a bad start to the 2007-08 season which saw the club pick up just three wins, Paul Simpson was sacked as manager on 13 November.
On 20 November, Everton's assistant manager Alan Irvine was appointed as Preston's new manager on a three-and-a-half year deal, and he achieved his first objective as manager by achieving Preston's survival in 15th place. [1]
[edit] Stadium
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Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (March 2008) |
[edit] Managerial history
- Listed according to when they became managers for Preston North End:
