Preston North End F.C. - History

History

In the past Preston was famously successful, being the first winner of "The Double" in English football. In 1888–89 Preston became the only team to go throughout an entire season unbeaten in both the league and FA Cup – also with the record of never conceding a goal in the FA Cup. Arsenal, in 2003–04, also managed to have an unbeaten season in the top flight (although Arsenal played 38 games to Preston's 22) but went out of the FA Cup at the semi-final stage. PNE was league champion again the following season but has not won the title since. The club's last major trophy was an FA Cup triumph in 1938.

Preston was relegated to the Second Division (currently the Football League Championship) in 1961 and has not played in the top division since. The club did reach the FA Cup final in 1964, but lost to West Ham United. Preston was relegated to the Third Division in the 1969–70 season. The club won the Third Division title at the first attempt and so returned to the Second Division.

Preston's famous player, Sir Tom Finney, is arguably one of the greatest footballers of all time and a local lad. Finney is regarded as one of the best of his era and scored 30 international goals in his time. He also made a brief appearance for Distillery of Northern Ireland during their European campaign of 1963. Dubbed the "Preston Plumber" due to his actually being a plumber, Finney remained Preston's most recent full England international until fifty years later, when David Nugent emerged, scoring in his only international match appearance, against Andorra.

Bobby Charlton, an England World Cup winner from 1966, was appointed Preston manager in 1973, but was unable to prevent the club from sliding into the Third Division in his first season and left after two years in charge. A brief respite in 1978 saw Preston win promotion back to the Second Division, but go down after three seasons. In 1985 the club fell into the Fourth Division for the first time in its history.

In 1986, Preston finished second from bottom in the Fourth Division and only avoided dropping into the Football Conference because the other Football League members voted in favour of the division's bottom four teams retaining their senior status.

The arrival of new manager John McGrath saw Preston win promotion to the Third Division a year later and it was still at this level when McGrath left in 1990. Veteran player Les Chapman took over as manager, but left in October 1992 to be replaced by John Beck. The 38-year-old Beck had only recently been sacked by Cambridge United, where he had achieved two successive promotions and come within a whisker of attaining a unique third. Beck was unable to save Preston from relegation from the first season of the new Division Two. He endured a Division Three playoff final failure before quitting in 1994 to be replaced by his assistant Gary Peters.

Peters guided Preston to Division Three title glory in his first full season as manager and quit in February 1998, to be replaced by 34-year-old defender David Moyes. Preston quickly developed into a Division Two promotion contender under Moyes, reaching the 1998–99 play-offs losing to Gillingham in the semi-finals before finally being promoted as champion a year later.