Preston North End F.C.

Preston North End Football Club is a professional English football team. It currently (2004-2005) plays in the Football League Championship.

League History

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).

Related Topics:
League - 1970 - Huddersfield Town

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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.

Related Topics:
Cliff Britton - League championship - First Division - Wolves

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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.

Related Topics:
FA Cup - West Ham - Howard Kendall

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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 only saved from relegation to the Conference when league members voted in favour of them and three other league clubs rather than Conference champions Enfield.

Related Topics:
Second Division - Third Division - Fourth Division - Conference - Enfield

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Preston won promotion back to the Third Division with John McGrath in 1987, but were relegated from the renamed Division Two in 1993. Managed by Gary Peters, Preston won promotion from Division Three in 1996, under the captaincy of Ian Bryson amid emotional scenes at their Deepdale home. 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 Derby County 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.

Related Topics:
David Moyes - Football League - Bolton Wanderers - Everton - Craig Brown - Motherwell - Billy Davies - Derby County - Play-off final - West Ham

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