Category: Big Interview

Friends Reunited: Kevin Kilbane

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Gary Peters has a lot to answer for, if it wasn’t for the former PNE boss, three young lads from the local area might never have worn the proud Lilywhite of Preston North End and may not even have become professional footballers.

Within the space of just over a year in the mid-1990s Peters handed those three young lads their professional football debuts, the fact that the three remain firm friends and follow each other’s career is testament to what they came through to reach their goal.

Kevin Kilbane, David Lucas and Paul McKenna were all products of the PNE youth system, all three made their debuts between October 1996 and December 1997 – McKenna actually made his league debut coming on as a sub for Kilbane.

But it was Kilbane who was the elder of the three, he was the first to make his debut, the first to get a big money move and remains the only one to play in the Premiership. The Everton midfielder looks back on his time as a youngster with PNE fondly.

“It was great for me,” Kilbane told the matchday programme.

”I was brought up within half a mile of the ground, so to play for the club I supported as a boy was terrific. Paul was a year younger than me but I had known him since I was 10 or 11 years of age.

”I made my Preston debut during the promotion season of 1995/96 against Torquay United and it was obviously a big thrill. David and Paul weren’t far behind me, we had some good times together and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.”

Kilbane, a member of the 1995-96 Third Division Championship winning squad, was soon thrilling the crowds at Deepdale and it wasn’t long before some of the bigger fish in league football were soon coveting his services and in June 1997 West Bromwich Albion paid North End £1.25 to take him to the Hawthorns. It was a record fee received for the Lilywhites and a big move for the 20-year-old but he never forgot his roots or his mates.

“I keep an eye out for the results of all my previous clubs, especially Preston. Personally I always like to see Paul McKenna and David Lucas do well and I keep a watch out for Lucas doing well at Sheffield Wednesday.

“It would have been great to see Preston in the Premiership, they were unlucky to lose twice in the Play-Offs, it would have been great to see Paul display his skills in the Premiership.

“McKenna is a wonderful player with a great touch and he is a terrific passer of the ball, hopefully Preston will be there or thereabouts again this year because I would love to come up against Paul in the Premiership.”

Kilbane should get a chance to test his wits against McKenna tonight though, he’s only come up against the Lilywhites once before, for Sunderland in August 2003, it was one his last games for the Black Cats before switching to his present employers.

”I have only been at Deepdale once since leaving the Club and that was for Sunderland. It is always great to get back and I am really looking forward to the game.

”I really hope that Paul gets a good turnout because he deserves it for the loyalty that he has shown to Preston North End,” added the Preston born maestro.

Big Interview: Alan Kelly Snr 10th May 2005

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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 29th 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.”

Big Interview: David Nugent 9th May 2005

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For Preston North End’s young striker David Nugent it has been a whirlwind 2005. Few had even heard of the chirpy scouser when he arrived on Deepdale’s doorstep in a £100,000 move from Bury at the start of January. He’d scored 13 goals for the Shakers but that’s all we really knew, four months on, the people of Preston can’t stop talking about their latest hero.

The matchday programme caught up with Nugent earlier this week to talk about his rise to stardom.

“I came here looking to get in the starting eleven,” is Nugent’s honest appraisal of his targets upon first arriving at Deepdale.

“I have done that and now we are in the play-offs so I am delighted to be in the play-offs. We have got Derby today, it should be a tough game, as we saw last weekend they are a good side but hopefully we can come through it.”

Nugent only played a bit part role in last week’s trip to Pride Park as North End boss Billy Davies chose to rest some of his key players. The fact that Rams boss George Burley only caught a fleeting glimpse of the youngster could mean that the PNE No.35 could be a secret weapon this afternoon, Nugent agrees that Billy’s cautious approach last week could be a tactical masterstroke.

It will be weird, to playing the same team three times on the bounce will be strange but that will happen sometimes in the play-offs and you just have to cope with it.

He said: “The Gaffer rested a few players last week like Brian O’Neil, the skipper Chris Lucketti and myself but players came in and did well. The Gaffer is not interested if you play home or away, he is confident that we can play well at home and away and that is the way that he wants it.

“Derby are beatable, we controlled the game for the first 25 minutes, they got a free-kick which they have taken early and it has gone in. It is a sucker punch just before half-time and when the second goal goes in you know that it is lost really. We tried a few changes to try and get back into the game, we have done that and then we lost Graham Alexander through an injury and that put us down to 10 men, they got a third and then it was definitely over. But we have got a lot of players to come back and hopefully we can beat them this weekend.

“It is a good thing that we rested a few key players, they won’t know what to expect this week when we play them when the players come back in. They will be confident that they can do us again but with more players coming in it will be a totally different game.

“It will be weird, to playing the same team three times on the bounce will be strange but that will happen sometimes in the play-offs and you just have to cope with it.”

Nugent has already paid much of the small fee that the Lilywhites sent down to Gigg Lane earlier this year. His eight goals in North End colours have helped catapult PNE into the play-off zone. And it’s not as if the strikes have been tap-ins, some of them have been worth the admission fee alone and made the youngster a fans favourite. Nugent is a firm believer that the fans can play a huge part in North End’s destiny this season and that they are currently on form!

“The fans can play a massive part,” said the striker.

“They have a huge influence on us, when they get behind us we seem to play better, hopefully they will get behind us on Sunday and hopefully we can do it for them.

“They come away from home as well to cheer us on. It is great for the fans and us when we get the fans behind us away especially with the home crowd trying to get on top of us, our fans seem to be getting on top of their fans at the moment even if there are less of them. If we do that again next week then it will be great.”

Whatever happens over the next few days, for Nugent the 2004/05 season will be remembered as the one where the young lad from Merseyside really announced himself to a the footballing nation, he could be representing that nation in the Toulon Tournament come the start of June, however he would prefer it if he was playing in a tournament otherwise known as the Premiership.

“It has been a massive month for me, I’ve been scoring goals for Preston and then I got the call-up for the Under-20s and then getting into the play-offs.

“It has been a great season for me, I just want to get into the Premiership now with Preston, if not then there is always next year but we are in the frame of mind that we want to go up this year.”

Big Interview: Carlo Nash 31st March 2005

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If Preston North End are looking for a good luck omen as the season approaches it’s exciting climax they may have just got one in the form of goalkeeper Carlo Nash.

The 6’5 strapping goalkeeper was a deadline day signing from Middlesbrough 12 days ago, he’s the final piece in Preston North End’s jigsaw for the 2004/05 campaign and after tasting promotion to the Premiership with both Manchester City and Crystal Palace in recent years he is a goalkeeper aiming for a hat-trick with North End this year.

Nash was a member of Kevin Keegan’s squad which took this division by storm three seasons ago but more importantly he has got to the Premiership via the play-offs in his first ever season in league football with Crystal Palace.

It is the experience of that Wembley play-off final win that PNE boss Billy Davies will be hoping that Nash can bring to the fore.

“Hopefully it will pay dividends,” Nash told the PNE matchday programme this week.

“I’ve been in this situation twice before once I got automatic promotion with City and previous to that I was with Crystal Palace when they won promotion via the play offs so hopefully those experiences will stand me in good stead for the end of the season.

“It’s important that I use my experience to help others around me. Because I’ve been there before I know what will be going through their minds and really it’s up to me and the other senior players to calm a few nerves if there are any and hopefully everyone will be fine.”

Nash has yet to have a full week’s training with his new team-mates, he only joined in properly on Tuesday of last week after the extended Easter weekend break and his first opportunity to meet his new colleagues was at a session of ten-pin bowling.

“It’s not a bad start to a new club really, we went bowling on Thursday and then we were off till Tuesday, it has been quite an easy start really but we have been working really hard since I came back in.

“I’m back to earth now we returned to training on the Tuesday and then we had the rest of the week building up to the Gillingham game.

“The training has been brilliant, much the same as what I am used to, Pete Williams takes the goalkeepers and we do a lot of work with him before and then we do some work with the gaffer and the rest of the lads.

“It takes a bit of getting used to because I don’t really know how each player performs and it is just up to me to manage that and getting them playing as I want them to play in front of me. Every keeper is different and it will take a little bit of time to get used to but hopefully we will get it right quickly.

“The lads have all been quite polite to me at the moment, I’m still waiting for a bit of a backlash but they are a good set of lads and they have made me feel right at home.”

Once Nash does get into the swing of things he won’t have too much of a honeymoon period as the North End squad are in the middle of a intense period of high-pressure games to reach the play-offs.

It’s a situation Carlo is more than aware of.

“Every game is a big game from now until the end of the season, we have just got to aim as high as we can and hopefully if we can get into the play-offs at the end of the season then who knows from there.

“We are just taking each game as it comes, we are trying to get the results and if we do that then we will have done well.

“Every game is going to be a tough game, mentally as well as physically but we have just got to be strong and get the results.”

For Nash the move to Deepdale is almost something of a return to his home roots, as a Bolton born lad the big keeper started his career at non-league Clitheroe.

“It’s great to be here. I was brought up in Bolton and spent a lot of my teenage years there. I played in Bolton town team and played at Deepdale when there was a plastic pitch so I do know the area quite well and it’s a great chance for me to come back here – back to my roots if you like.

“I started my career playing for Clitheroe and working as a Sales Manager selling office equipment in Blackburn and then the Chairman rang me up a week after the FA Vase final and just said Crystal Palace have offered £35,000 for you, do you want to speak to them? So I thought that if I don’t go down now I’ll never know, so I went down and spoke to Harry Bassett and the rest is history.”

Whilst Nash is very much a part of Palace’s and Manchester City’s recent history it is the thought of completing a promotion hat-trick which is exciting North End’s latest recruit.

“I was in the same situation in the play-offs when I just started at Crystal Palace so I know what it’s all about and it’s a great position to be in. I’ve been keeping my eye on the Championship league and I know they’ve been doing well and I knew they had a great chance of going up. The play-offs are a bit of a lottery so obviously the first aim is to get in there and we’ll take it from there and hopefully we can push on and get promotion.

“Preston were always been there or there-abouts even when I was at Stockport and they were always a great side to play against. I know what great sides they’ve had over the past years so I think the squad that we’ve got at the moment and obviously with Billy at the helm we’ve got a great future ahead of us. We need to take each step as it comes and hopefully we’ll get promotion this year.”

Training and playing with Preston North End will be like a breath of fresh air to the No.33, he has had to endure a couple of seasons as understudy to one of the Premiership’s most consistent stoppers in Middlesbrough’s Mark Schwarzer.

“It has been very frustrating for me because obviously I want to play, I don’t want to sit on the bench every week. Obviously at Middlesbrough when I signed I knew it’d be tough for me because Mark Schwarzer is a great keeper and unless he got injured I wouldn’t really be getting a shout. I don’t look back and regret that move and see it as an integral part of my career as the training and facilities there enabled me to push forward and get better as a player as well as in the fitness department. Hopefully I can put into practice what I’ve learnt over the last two years.

“Billy Davies has done well this season to get Preston where they are and when he rang me up he made me feel at ease. He obviously he wanted me to sign here and thought I’d be great asset to the team so he more or less convinced me – if I needed any convincing to sign.

“There was a few more clubs interested but not at this present time and the factor for me was that Preston really wanted to sign me and I saw it as an opportunity to play in the Championship and with the position they’re in hopefully get promotion.”

Big Interview: Guy Butters 31st March 2005

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“It is just a shame that we haven’t done so well of late,” Butters told the North End Matchday programme.

“If we had picked up a few results in them games, I know it sounds strange but you are not that far off the play-offs if you win a few games. We just want to survive really, it’s just about staying in this division but with about eleven games to go it was looking quite healthy. But we have lost four on the trot and it is looking a bit tighter down there.

“I was at Brighton when they went down before but I wasn’t playing at the time. It has been an eventful five years for the club, they have had promotions or relegations every year so it is pretty apt that we are in a relegation struggle.”

The fact that Butters and his team-mates have been dragged into the relegation dogfight probably owes more to the competitiveness of the Championship. Even with just seven games to go it’s almost as if every club has something to play for.

“We have been looking at all the teams and everyone has got to play each other, we have still to go to Rotherham, we have got to play Leicester and Coventry so we know that we have got to play a few of the teams down there, it is in our hands really. As long as we play the way that we know we can fingers crossed it will be alright.

“When it gets down to this period of the season then it is all about winning games, at the start of the season you want to win every game. Sometimes you get managers who more bothered about how well you play whereas now we would take playing absolutely awful as long as we win.”

One of those teams at the bottom who will be battling to stay up along with Brighton is Butters’ former club Gillingham. The centre-half spent just under six years at Priestfield and he will be hoping that he can spark up some of the Gillingham curse tonight.

“I still talk to a few of the Gillingham lads, there was a stage a few games ago where we had a better goal difference then them by about 10, but they have overtaken us on that one so we have got to make sure that we start picking things up.

“We beat Preston in the play-offs one year and we used to do quite well up there. I think I remember only being beaten once when I was at Gillingham. You always knew that it was a difficult place to go and if you got something out of the game you would be pretty relieved, before the game you would take a point if it was offered you.  We used to have some good battles when Sean Gregan was there and all them lot.”

With the Brighton team making the long journey up for a night match, Butters knows that a good result is important so that they don’t have to endure what would be a very quiet and long journey home should things go wrong. He’s hoping for a repeat of what happened at the Withdean earlier this season.

“You want to get the result because if you lose it is a long journey home, but it will be two away games on the trot and hopefully we can get a few points.

“I remember the game earlier in the season, we played pretty well that day. We knew that you were a good side yourselves and we seem to raise ourselves against the better sides, unfortunately we don’t seem to be able to do it against the lesser sides. It was 1-0 but we know that since then Preston have gone on to better things and that they are looking to get into the play-offs so it is going to be a difficult game.”

Those big results have come at all sorts of places and he has even managed to notch a couple of important goals at Upton Park and Elland Road, the one against the Hammers proved to be the winner and upset a few members of his family.

“My dad is a West Ham fan so he weren’t too happy. We train at a University and I got talking to a few West Ham fans throughout the season, they kept saying that they were going to go and give me some stick, so to actually score, I saw one of them when I was coming off the pitch and it was quite funny.

“It was a good result but we have had a few like that this year, we beat Leicester away and done quite well and we have beaten Sheffield United away so we know that on our day we are capable of giving anyone a good game really.”

The 35-year-old will be hoping that his team-mates have one last good away performance in them to take all three points tonight!

Big Interview: Carl Cort 7th March 2005

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Amid all the speculation and rumours surrounding Glenn Hoddle’s managerial future at Wolverhampton Wanderers, one player has stepped forward and offered the former England boss plenty of support at the same time as doing the business on the field.

Wolves paid £2,000,000 to prise Carl Cort away from Newcastle United following a successful loan spell at Molineux and after the striker scored a brace of goals in last weekend’s impressive 4-1 victory over Crewe he was full of praise for his gaffer.

“The manager has come in and introduced new ideas and his coaching skills are very high,” said Cort. “He knows a lot about the game.

“I just think at the moment, in terms of the fans and maybe the players as well, he has signed a contract until the end of the season and you don’t really know what is going to happen.

“I think that is a shame because you can’t really build.

“It has nothing to do with me – I’m just here to play football – it is down to the board. They are 100 per cent sure what they are doing and we’ll leave that to them.”

Following last weekend’s eye-catching display at Gresty Road the former Wimbledon man is still hopeful of a place in the play-offs, the win over Dario Gradi’s men put them eight points off the play-off places.

“You have to have some sort of target and ours is still to get in the play-offs, otherwise you end up just drifting through the season and going through the motions,” he added.

“We have to have that in mind to keep the motivation and the confidence there.

“It is one of those situations where we maybe need a couple of good wins to lift the club.”

Things have definitely changed at Molineux since Hoddle took over the reigns from Dave Jones at the start of December. Pessimists amongst the Wolverhampton faithful would say that the team who were plying their trade in the Premiership last season are not winning enough games, 10 draws from the last 16 games means that the team have only won four games, but then they have only lost twice.

“The boss is very technical and very experienced, with a good knowledge of the game and we’ve only lost once in the League since he’s been here so it’s not gone too badly.

“He’s only here initially for six months so certain things he’s had to rush in a sense. We have played a lot of different formations since he’s been here and done things which are new for some players  – which could have had an effect on the way we played.

“We’d all like the gaffer to sign a longer deal because he’s done well for us. The boys are enjoying it because he has brought something new to us and we look a lot more organised and the confidence and motivation is still there.”

It is sure to be an interesting atmosphere at the Wolverhampton Wanderers training complex, especially following reports that appeared in several national newspapers last weekend, with Paul Ince supposedly being lined up as the successor to Glenn Hoddle for the Molineux hotseat.

Despite the stories it is business as usual as far as Cort is concerned: “There’s bit a bit of banter flying around about the Incey report but not too much has been said because at the end of the day it’s just paper talk.

“But whatever happens our job is just to play football. We’ve got to stay confident that we can maybe make the play-offs because the season is coming to a close and we don’t want to be drifting our way through from now until the end with nothing to play for.

“We’ve got to keep that as an incentive. It’s going to be a tall order but we just have to go out and try and win every game.”

Cort’s Career

Club From To Fee League FA Cup League cup Other
Wolves 25-01-2004 £ 2000000 41 (5) 17 2 (0) 1 1 (0) 0 0 (0) 0
Newcastle 05-07-2000 25-01-2004 £ 7000000 19 (3) 7 2 (0) 0 3 (0) 1 0 (1) 0
Lincoln 03-02-1997 01-03-1997 Loan 5 (1) 1 0 (0) 0 0 (0) 0 0 (0) 0
Milton Keynes 07-06-1996 05-07-2000 Trainee 54 (19) 16 6 (4) 2 8 (2) 7 0 (0) 0
Totals £ 9000000 119 (28) 41 10 (4) 3 12 (2) 8 0 (1) 0