Category: Preston North End

If David Unsworth becomes a successful manager he has the opportunity to perhaps look back to this week as his finest hour.  Imagine that 2 days before a match you’re appointed caretaker manager and later in the day 2 of your best players have their loan agreement ended.  Then 1 day before the match you’re told two more of your players have had their loan ended and the centre forward is being sold, while another key player is being told he shouldn’t be there as Manchester United are challenging his loan contract.

Today it was announced that Stoke City have followed Manchester United by taking back their two loan players.  Stoke advise they need the players to cover through a difficult fixture period.  Some people are speculating that the relationship between Manchester United and Stoke managers is close and there is a good chance it has associations with the sacking of Darren Ferguson.  This is surely not true?

If such a network does exist perhaps it would be best to be well out of it as PNE seem to have had more loan players in the last 12 months than ever known and it seemed the team wasn’t really ever going to settle or seem to be the genuine item.  To give the impression that PNE are hooked so dependantly onto Manchester United is a loss of dignity, despite the glow.  From using their training ground to loaning players and who knows what else.  The more information that is popping out about this period the less concerning the dismissal becomes.  It can’t be good for Darren either.

Following the ending of Darren Ferguson’s term at PNE his father Sir Alex Ferguson has immediately recalled two loan players and a third who is on a longer contract is wanted back.  Two of the players appear to have made a mark.  With PNE having no money to buy decent players it isn’t clear what effect this will have as North End also have several other loan players who seemed to be here, gone, then back.  The best players like St Ledger seem not to be giving their best and some players who had previously seemed good to have lost form and been loaned elsewhere.  Whether this can be made right and some stability returned must be an objective.

David Unsworth has been put in charge for the next 2 games.  Phil Brown is the bookies favourite although PNE might be hoping that David Unsworth gets some results and can be offered a cheaper, shorter contract.  David Unsworth would seem the best outcome for this season and long term if he can get some early results and this is a great opportunity for him.  A concern about Phil Brown might be that with Hull he had the support of a wealthy backer who completely transformed the club, although often money achieves less than expected and it was a meteoric rise similar to Darren Ferguson at Peterborough but they didn’t have the money to take it further.

How many clubs have stayed with a manager when they have been at the bottom with things seeming to be getting worse in November, yet………

Yesterday PNE dropped to bottom following the home defeat to Hull and Crystal Palace winning at home. The position doesn’t look good as a clear gap is appearing but the chairman gave Darren Ferguson a vote of confidence saying he’d been hit by injuries.   It would be normal to expect the manager to be ousted in such a situation but PNE have paid off the two previous managers and are in business only because they have been bailed out by Trevor Hemmings. The wage bill is still said to be excessive and there are players on the books who should be gone. Meanwhile gates are low and likely to get lower.  To add to the difficulty it is said that Trevor Hemmings is friendly with Alec Ferguson.  Trevor Hemmings isn’t known for buying lemons and as he owns the club it doesn’t seem likely he would want to run it down or put it into administration. 

On the positive side the squad isn’t as bad as it has appeared. Some of the goals conceded have been what you might say are blatant one-off errors typical of a team that are down on their confidence. Whether Darren Ferguson can turn it round isn’t clear, whether he needs someone to give him management support might be a route the club and him might be willing to take. Although how this would work and for how long will tax everyones diplomatic,  communication and business skills in setting it up.

There is another route to let the team fight their way up or be relegated and then hope that Darren can pull something out of the fire and maybe gain more experience in League 1. This seems a risky strategy as its easier to go down than come up and what Darren did at Peterborough might not be repeated.

Looking at the table and fixtures, the game against QPR next week might be written off but PNE have surprised in such circumstances. The game in two weeks at home against Millwall might be more of a trial as losing that after a defeat at QPR would be a ‘6 pointer’ and things would be reaching a point of no return.  With all these ponderables the obvious route of changing manager might not be the best route overall so it seems that whatever path is chosen will be clear in the next couple of weeks.

On October 29th Ronnie Clayton, the famous Blackburn Rovers midfielder of the 1950’s and 60’s, died aged 76. Making his first team debut at the age of 17, playing for England at 20 and captaining England at 25 and yet continuing to work in the local newsagency he owned in Darwen.  Somehow after going to school in Preston, Fishwick, he was spotted by Blackburn and went there. In Blackburn he is revered and regarded as a gentleman with a common touch much as Tom Finney is in Preston.

North End live on BBC2 today and looking good at 3-1 in the lead. Then a bit of an incident where Burnley thought a PNE player had handled although it looked one of those unavoidable handballs.  The ref looked a bit worried that he’d missed something and moments later sent off the North End player for a totally trivial offence. Was this evening the score?  Anyway it changed the match and Burnley scored 3 goals against 10 man PNE.

To me it was a good reason not to watch football. I wonder why you should pay so much and have the result skewed on a whim.

Strangely having looked at the Evening Post website at 10.30pm  there is only a small article tucked away well down the page and not a single letter from a fan.   Am I missing something or is the LEP blacked by PNE fans.

Not the best start to the season. Scoring one goal in 4 games and playing 2 teams who are struggling.

Interesting controversy about Portsmouth being a premium game with an entrance charge of £30. PNE need to get some money in but £30 is a lot to pay.  Is football on a par with the cinema or a show.  Theatre can cost £20 outside a city but then most people don’t go to the theatre every couple of weeks.  So maybe £10 for a casual spectator to £15 for a fanatical supporter at a Championship football match seems reasonable.  Although no doubt the die-hards would want that reversing.  Maybe the charge should increase as the clubs position improves and premium games sounds a good scheme from such a base.

There are options to make a contribution to the club on the PNE website and from £35 to £48 a year there is a subscription to match highlights and live commentary with news-shots. It isn’t clear who gets how much money for this as the subscription goes to the Football League. Someone has to manage it as it would be difficult to set up as a club so it seems a reasonably priced option to contribute to PNE. 

Use it or lose it is a good adage and a football club puts a place on the map.  Blackpool are saying the advertising from this season couldn’t be bought, and is Wigan a better known place than Lancaster nowadays, certainly is. So there is value to the ratepayers for a contribution.

Nothing much to say, looks pretty bad.

The case for the defence:
It is said PNE have never done well at Swansea. 
It is said PNE players are coming back from injury. 
It is said it’s early yet.

To use the words from the film ‘High Noon’.

‘I do not know what fate awaits me I only know I must be brave’.

First game of the season and PNE are in good company as Middlesbrough and Reading lost at home as well.  Do names matter though. 

Last season PNE won all their opening games and in the end just managed to escape relegation.  This season they might lose all their opening games and get promoted.  Hope is what makes humans resilient.

As part of a personal campaign for summer relaxation, football is being almost ignored until 1st September.

July, and next years season is getting into gear with the first friendlies.   Seems a bad idea.  Surely the season should start on 1st September or maybe August Bank Holiday with a couple of friendlies in the week before. Especially with the World Cup ending what seems like yesterday.

Sir Alec Ferguson is backing a winter break to the season.  It seems a good idea.  Long ago players would skate on ice and wade through mud but now they are superfit athletes playing at lightning speed and it seems inappopriate. Not to mention such conditions favouring the physical players who like to give the more skilful players we all want to see a hard time. It also means clubs need more players to ensure they can rotate and cover for injuries so a break might make those clubs more solvent and enable better players to move to lower clubs.  A break would make the fixture list more compressed so something else might have to give and that sometimes takes money away from less wealthy clubs. Not to mention the TV companies not being in favour. So overall it looks like a non-starter.

Maurice Lindsay has been appointed Chairman of Preston North End to replace Derek Shaw who has been given the post of  Vice President of PNE.

Maurice was on the board of Wigan Athletic and before that was Chief Executive of the Rugby League and Wigan Rugby Club.  Experience at the high end of sport administration.

Trevor Hemmings has taken his share holding to 75% which is the threshold he needs to take control.

The outstanding bill from HMRC has been paid and the insolvency case is to be dropped.

That’s the business end sorted so now it’s up to Darren. On the day the Chancellor announced he want’s more for less Darren announces he does as well.

2010 / 11 season opens on the 7th August which is 2 weeks earlier than it should.  A home game for Preston North End against Doncaster should be a good demonstration of what to expect in the new season.  Portsmouth and Burnley are faced in the first few weeks but Leeds is the fixture that holds most attraction. Based on the second half of last season North End will be struggling next year and another season of anxiety beckons. Will Darren find his feet at this level, how long will it take, how long will he be given?  When will Mr Hemmings get the number of shares he needs and how much more is he willing to put into the club. More questions than answers.

Quite a shock looking at the Premier League table.  Blackburn 4th, Blackpool 5th, Bolton 6th. Blackpool visit Arsenal for their second game and Chelsea for their 5th. It’s a good advert for the holiday town anyway, they couldn’t afford to buy that much publicity.

Trevor Hemmings in the form of Deepdale PNE Holdings now has almost 52% of the clubs shares and following stock exchange rules is offering to buy out all other shareholders.  Failure to obtain adequate shares will result in financial support being withdrawn from the club and the club entering liquidation, unless someone else comes along.

It might seem hard to some people who are asked to sell their shares at 5p each but the club owes £30m and without a major beneficiary there is no way it can continue.

Some might think Trevor Hemmings is making a killing getting the shares so cheap but he has risked millions of pounds by supporting the club and there is no guarantee that he will get it back.  In reality it is probably every supporters dream to be wealthy enough to own the club you support. It is also a good thing that someone is willing to bankroll the club so let’s get the rest of the shares transferred and get the situation settled.

Today Blackpool have been promoted to the Premier League leapfrogging PNE in the Lancashire pecking order.  There was a time when it seemed that to go into the Premier League and be thrashed regularly looked a fate worth avoiding but having seen Burnley and Hull do that it now seems well worth the bragging rights.

Not sure if PNE have missed the crest of their wave but Blackpool were forecast to be relegated and only just made the play-offs so you can never say never.

Late today an announcement that PNE has an outstanding tax bill that will cause the clubs shares to be suspended on Monday. The formal term appears to be a ‘winding up order’ which is thought to sound more dramatic than it actually is.

A quick search on Google shows that several clubs have had these orders or been threatened with them. Those listed in the search seem to still be trading, Cardiff, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Swindon, Accrington.

That PNE had a loan from Trevor Hemmings to pay the wages recently sounded a bit ominous.  This can’t have been totally out of the blue so the club and board members will probably know the options and be exploring them.  Many people expect Trevor Hemmings to conjure up some cash as he’s unlikely to let his shareholding whither, yet there might be other options to be taken with more vigour to reduce costs and generate cash.

Beaten 4-1 at Reading in the last match of the season on Sunday 2nd May. General comment being a poor performance by Preston.

End of season position 17th with 54 points. One victory a month in March and April probably gives Darren Ferguson about 10 games to save his job. Hope he sorts it.

Blackpool in play-offs. Well done to them. Blackpool needs the publicity to help get its holiday industry back on its feet.

Today at 5pm the Preston based national football museum closed at the historic Deepdale football stadium. The displays will next be presented in Manchester in 2011 in the modern Urbis building with the ski-run roof.

The trustees said there is still an opportunity for Preston to have a second NFM. Perhaps, and perhaps a platitude, not burning all your bridges or let’s leave safely, then whisper insults and blow raspberries when we’re out.

After the raspberry, here are the sour grapes. This move isn’t a sure fire winner. It’s very expensive. Urbis wasn’t a popular success despite plenty of advertising and it will be interesting to learn if the nearby new Peoples History Museum is a success. We’ve walked past a few times and never seen anyone going in. Manchester has one of the best science and industry museums in the country and it has the Imperial War Museum North. There are some good art galleries as well. Fitting in other lesser museums isn’t easy, so to date we’ve not fitted in the Peoples History Museum even though we park next door. Maybe it’s a different audience.

Hard not to want it to be a success in reality though.

A battling win over Scunthorpe yesterday coupled with defeats for Sheffield Wednesday and Crystal Palace means that Preston will definitely be playing in the Championship in season 2010/11. Unless some amazing scandal creates a points deduction.

Although both Wednesday and Palace can in isolation get more points it is one of those happy coincidences that they have a game against each other, so one must fail to pass PNE.

In reality they’ll be lucky to get many more points at all but it’s good to have it settled.

With the pressure off they should play better and Darren Ferguson can get a proper look at the team. Sean St Ledger is getting a lot of criticism from the fans in the Evening Post, yet when he left on loan it seemed he’d taken the teams spirit. After believing that Neil Mellor would be the next Alex Dawson I’m no longer going to add my support for SSL but as big clubs think he’s good enough to consider, I’d be looking at other reasons than his skill for his performance.

Bad run continues. Fortunately fan friendly Alan Irvine did us a favour with Sheffield Wednesday losing at home. Sheff W are looking sick but not dead.

Difficult to imagine that if PNE stay in the Championship that they will be transformed enough to remain in it next year. Also low expectation makes getting new players and retaining decent players more difficult. Particularly with the like of Leeds coming into the Championship.

They won’t sack Darren though, he’ll be given more time. A solution could be to bring in a mentor although hard to imagine who that would be, particularly with his father being a top manager, and so it won’t happen.

The bottom is getting closer but if they can’t get 3 more points they deserve to go down. Sheff Wed have a high probability of not getting more points than Preston currently have. At the moment it still looks like Sheff W, Plymouth and Peterborough to go down. Although all the games for Crystal Palace are relegation battlers or promotion contenders.

Remaining games:
Preston v Scunthorpe – fellow strugglers, but PNE will win 2-0 and kill the stress.
Coventry v Preston. Coventry have nothing to play for.
Preston v Leicester – Leicester are playing for promotion and are a point above Blackpool.
Reading v Preston – Reading should have nothing to play for by then but….

Sheffield Wed play Middlesbrough, Sheff U, Cardiff, Crystal P.
Crystal P play QPR, Derby, West Brom, Sheff W.
Scunthorpe play Preston, Bristol C, Reading, Doncaster, Notts F.
Watford play Plymouth, Leicester, QPR, Reading, Coventry.