Preston North End’s last ever game in the top flight of English football came against Bolton Wanderers at the old Burnden Park ground on April 29^th 1961. Watching from the stands that day was a young goalkeeper who was to spend his entire footballing career trying to get the Lilywhites back into the top flight but to no avail.

The matchday programme speaks to Deepdale Legend and the man who holds the record for PNE appearances, Alan Kelly Snr.

“I was really delighted when I saw that they were in the play-offs,” Kelly says from his home over in the United States.

“I was just watching the highlights of the game against Derby last Sunday and I wouldn’t pay any attention to that result. I am sure on the day the lads will have their sleeves rolled up and that they will do well.

“It would be great for the town, the people of Preston are great football-minded people and it is great that they have something to go at and I am sure the place will be packed solid and it will be the same when they play at Derby the following week.

“It would be nice for them to make a return to the top division, it will be terrific for the team after a lot of years of not being in there.”

Kelly didn’t become a regular in the North End line-up until the season after they had been relegated from the old Division One and even though many suggested that Tom Finney’s retirement played a huge role in PNE’s demise, the Irishman reckons that the Lilywhites still had some great players capable of keeping them in the division.

“I was just talking to somebody the other day and we were talking about the old days at Preston North End, the likes of Tommy Docherty, Frank O’Farrell, Tom Finney, Jimmy Baxter, Fred Else who was in goal, the time we were top of the First Division, what is the Premiership now. That was a really great side.

“Losing Tom Finney didn’t help and although there were some really good players in the team it was just Tom’s presence on the field, there used to be two or three players marking him and that created a little outlet for other players. There wasn’t many games when he didn’t do his stuff either!

“Tom was probably one of the best players in the world when he played and no side likes to be without a player of Tom Finney’s calibre.

“But when we went down the club had some really good players and we probably didn’t play particularly well. We had some good patches and some bad patches and we were a little bit inconsistent. It was a sad day for the club, for any club that gets relegated it is a sad day.”

The Lilywhites are once again within touching distance for what is probably only the third time since the club dropped out of the top flight, younger fans will only remember the play-off final of 2001 but Kelly remembers a season that the club almost made it back automatically.

“It was 1964 and it was Sunderland, Leeds and us all season and I think most years in those days if you got 56 points you were almost guaranteed promotion, of course there were only two teams went up in those days.

“That year I think we did get 56 points but Leeds and Sunderland had a few points more than us, that was the year we got to the Cup Final.

“The game has changed so much since then. They are talking about millions now when you go into the Premier League, I always think if only that could have happened to me. I was watching on the TV and I saw that Wigan Athletic just got promotion and who would have thought of that!? But good luck to them, they have done great, it is a great boost for a team like that which is basically a rugby town.”

This week’s match-up with Derby County brings back fond memories of a former team-mate for Kelly Snr, a player who started his English career at Deepdale before moving on to greater things at the Baseball Ground.

“Archie Gemmill never stopped, he was one of those players who the minute he stepped on the field he never stopped running, whether it was was in attack or defence, he wouldn’t stop for 90 minutes, he was a little dynamo.

“Derby were always a good footballing side and when you played against them you knew that you were going to get a hard game. They always wanted to play some good football as well and I am sure that it is going to be a great sort of fixture on both legs.”

But it was Alan Kelly Snr who went on to become the Deepdale Legend, so much so that they named one of the stands after him at the ground and the legendary stopper is hoping that the fans that sit in that part of the ground can cheer his team on to glory.

“Preston always get great support, even when we were having bad times we were always great with the support, they are a very knowledgeable public.

“I hope that they give the lads a lift and I am sure that they will, I hope it all works the right way, I’ll have fingers crossed, legs crossed, everything crossed hoping that it will.”