Tag: Lilywhites

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: 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.”

Flashback: Wolves 1st March 2005

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Preston North End have had some crucial and interesting meetings with Wolves down the years not surprising for two of the founder members of the football league.

The first big occasion between the two sides came at the Oval in March 1889, the Lilywhites had already completed the inaugural Football League season unbeaten as Champions and they arrived in London for the FA Cup Final hoping to complete the double.

North End had already defeated Birmingham and West Brom in the previous two rounds of the cup and they were hoping to complete the hat-trick over their Midlands rivals.

The Invincibles were born that afternoon at Surrey County Cricket Club when goals from Ross, Dewhurst and Thomson ensured a 3-0 win and also ensured that PNE would go throughout the whole competition without conceding a goal.

One of the more interesting battles between the two sides came in the 1926/27 season when the two sides clashed for a Second Division clash at Molineux. Not for the first or last time at Wolves, North End were down to 10 men in the first half, but nobody was sent off. In bizarre circumstances David Morris was forced out of action as early as the third minute when the laced part of the ball hit him in the eye and caused a blood clot which impaired his vision. PNE still had their sights set on victory though, a goal from Tommy Roberts and an o.g. from Wolves’ Shaw ensured a 2-1 win.

Two decades later and there would definitely be no celebrations for North End at Molineux. 54,425 fans crammed into the home of Wolverhampton Wanderers, not that the game had any real significance for Stan Cullis’ side, other than the fact that Wolves had just been to Wembley to win the FA Cup! The Lilywhites on the other hand were battling to avoid the drop and would have to do so without the injured Tom Finney.

The carnival atmosphere obviously allowed the Wolves players to relax a little and it wasn’t long before Mullen fired home their first goal of the afternoon after just 17 minutes.

North End’s Jimmy Gooch was performing all sorts of heroics in goal but the keeper could do little to stop Hancocks doubling the lead midway through the first-half hitting a 25-yard thunderbolt that scorched through the goalkeeper’s hands.

Bobby Langton grabbed a late consolation effort three minutes from the end when he fired home a penalty but it was too little too late for PNE, as was North End’s 2-0 home win over Liverpool one week later as results elsewhere contrived to send the Lilywhites down to the Second Division.

If Wolves victory inflicted pain on North End in sending them down, four years later they would inflict further damage but this time on North End’s quest to win the Football League Championship in the 1952/53 campaign.

It was a three way battle for the Championship, Stan Cullis’ Wolves, Tom Whittaker’s Arsenal and Preston’s Scot Symon all were in the mix as managers of their respective clubs.

And with just five games left of the season in what many considered to be the final eliminator Wolves would travel to Deepdale for an all important clash. Expectation levels were high amongst 35,788 North End fans that went through the turnstiles, the Lilywhites had already defeated Wolves 5-2 in an FA Cup tie earlier in the season and Tom Finney was back in the side after a five game absence.

But the efforts of the Preston Plumber were not to be enough as despite a Jimmy Baxter goal for PNE, the two sides could only manage a 1-1 draw. North End would defeat Arsenal at Deepdale in the penultimate game of the season but once again it was not enough to rescue the title as the Gunners claimed the Championship on goal difference!

North End would enjoy some titanic contests with Wolves throughout the 1950s and five years after Cullis’ side had denied Preston the Championship, they did it again and this time the Midlands club were the beneficiaries.

The Lilywhites and the Wanderers were both gunning for the League title in the 1957/58 season and with just three games to go of the campaign Harry Catterick took his Preston side to Molineux knowing that the winners would probably finish top of the table.

Preston had only been beaten once in the league since the turn of the year on a run of form that included an 8-0 thrashing of Birmingham City. Tom Finney scored twice against the Blues but he would be unavailable for the title decider due to international commitments.

Finney scored 26 goals that season, imagine Arsenal playing a title decider against Manchester United without the services of Thierry Henry!

North End also had Tommy Docherty missing through international duty but they soldiered on regardless.

It was not to be Preston’s day or year for that matter, the home side took advantage of some indecision in the North End defence in the 38th minute when Deeley from the Wanderers picked up on a lucky ricochet to slam the ball into an empty net.

PNE battled back in the second half and Hatsell almost levelled matters when his flick header brought a good save out of Wolves keeper Finlayson. Farrell drove inches wide and Hatsell again came close with a header.

But it was all in vain and Wolves put the Championship of Preston’s reach in the dying minutes when Milne sliced into his own net trying to clear a Broadbent chip.

Wolverhampton’s win would be the last time that the team in gold and black would finish as the top team in England and the 1957/58 season would also represent the last time that the Lilywhites would ever really be considered as challengers for English football’s ultimate title.