Matches
Matches between the two clubs have at times had significant consequences. For example, on 30 April 1904, Blackpool visited Deepdale for the final game of the season, and the home side's single-goal victory gave them the Division Two championship, edging out Woolwich Arsenal.
In 1912–13, Preston won the Division Two championship (and fellow Lancastrians Burnley were also promoted) while Blackpool finished bottom of the table. The Seasiders, however, were successful in their re-application to the League.
On 4 May 1921, Blackpool played a benefit match against Preston, with the proceeds going to the widow of Seasiders defender Horace Fairhurst, who died in February after suffering on-field head injury, and to the children of his partner at full-back, Bert Tulloch, whose wife had died the same weekend as Fairhurst.
It was until November 1925, at the sixth attempt, that Blackpool recorded their first home success against Preston. A brace by Bert Fishwick, together with a goal by Billy Meredith, gave the Seasiders a 3–1 victory.
Between 1946 and 1961, the derby took place in the top flight of English football for all but two seasons, with both clubs playing in the First Division. In the 1947–48 season both clubs were joint-favourites to win the FA Cup; however, Preston lost 4–1 to Manchester United in the quarter-finals while Blackpool made it to the final, in which they lost 4–2 to Manchester United.
On 1 May 1948, at Deepdale, Blackpool inflicted what still remains Preston's record loss in the Football League: 7–0. Jimmy McIntosh scored five goals and Alex Munro and Walter Rickett scored one apiece. The 1950s saw eighteen matches between the two clubs in what was then the top flight in English football.
A record attendance at Bloomfield Road was set for the 9 October 1954 meeting of the two clubs. 36,204 witnessed a 2–1 victory for the visitors.
On 29 October 1955, in a 6–2 victory for Preston North End, George Farm became one of the few goalkeepers to score a goal. He injured a shoulder and replaced Jackie Mudie at centre-forward, where he proceeded to open the scoring with his head.
Blackpool ruined Preston North End's Christmas of 1958 with a festive double in the space of twenty-four hours. The Seasiders inflicted a 4–2 Christmas Day defeat on their neighbours at Bloomfield Road. When the two sides met again, on Boxing Day at Deepdale, the visitors were 3–0 victors.
During the first half of a friendly between the two clubs on 15 August 1966 came the news that Alan Ball had been transferred to Everton for a fee of £112,000. Ball was left on the bench, alongside Emlyn Hughes. Blackpool won this match, plus the two other meetings played inside seven days.
One of the most significant West Lancashire derbies took place on 13 April 1970, at Deepdale. Blackpool won the Second Division match 3–0, a result which saw them promoted back to the First Division, which was then the top flight, while the result later assisted in Preston's being relegated to the Third Division for the first time in the club's history. Blackpool striker Fred Pickering scored a hat-trick in front of a crowd of over 34,000 – over 15,000 of whom travelled from Blackpool, with another 3,000 Tangerines fans locked outside the stadium. Jimmy Armfield later said of that night: "The real rivalry started that night. It was such a significant result for both teams. Many walked back to Blackpool and our bus passed them on the way home, dancing and singing by the road." Blackpool's joy was short-lived, however, as they spent just one season in the First Division before being relegated the next year.
In the 1972–73 season, Alan Ainscow scored his only hat-trick when Blackpool won 3–0 at Deepdale on 19 December 1972.
Alan Suddick scored his 100th League goal, a penalty, in Blackpool's 3–0 victory at Bloomfield Road on 23 March 1974. It was the last West Lancashire derby to take place at Bloomfield Road for fourteen years.
The two clubs met at Deepdale in the Anglo-Scottish Cup on 4 August 1979. With Preston leading 3–1 in the final minute, North End goalkeeper Tom McAlister saved Ricky Thomson's penalty, tipping the ball onto the bar. It bounced down over the line, but by then the referee Ashley had blown his whistle to signal the end of the game. The goal did not count, but the spectators went home in the belief that the scoreline was 3–2. The official explained to Thomson and McAlister that the moment the ball had stopped travelling forwards the game was over and ruled it had ended the moment McAlister touched the ball. They met on two other occasions in the same competition: on 2 August 1978 at Deepdale (Preston won 4–2) and on 5 August 1980 at Bloomfield Road (Blackpool won 1–0).
In the Football League Group Cup at Deepdale on 15 August 1981, Preston won 2–1.
In the Lancashire Manx Cup, the two clubs met on several occasions. Firstly, on 17 August 1982, Blackpool won 2–1 at Bloomfield Road. 364 days later, the fixture was repeated, this time with the visitors winning 3–2. Two years later, on 3 August 1985, Blackpool won 2–1 at Deepdale. They did not meet again until 9 August 1988, when the teams drew 1–1 at Bloomfield Road. The following season, on 8 August 1989, Blackpool won 2–0 at home in the final meeting of the two clubs in the competition.
With both clubs languishing in the lower tiers of the Football League, some consolation came for Preston in the 1992–93 season, when they won 3–2 at Bloomfield Road, with Tony Ellis scoring a hat-trick.
On 17 April 1999, Brett Ormerod scored an injury-time winner for Blackpool at Deepdale.
The following campaign, after Preston's 3–0 Division Two victory over Blackpool at Deepdale on 18 December 1999, Nigel Worthington resigned as Blackpool manager.
The 1999–2000 season was also significant for Preston, who were then under the management of David Moyes. Their draw at Bloomfield Road in April 2000 assisted in their promotion from Division Two to the second tier of English football for the first time in twenty years. Later that month, Preston were crowned champions, while by the end of the season Blackpool were relegated to Division Three, the bottom division of the Football League, leaving two divisions between the clubs. The two clubs did not play each other for another seven years, during which time Preston finished fourth in their first season in Division One and reached the play-offs, losing out on promotion to the Premier League to Bolton Wanderers in the final. Two further play-off appearances followed, in 2004–05, when they again reached the final, and the following season, when they reached the semi-finals. Meanwhile, Blackpool languished in the bottom two divisions, before finally winning promotion back to the second tier in the 2006–07 season.
Read more about this topic: West Lancashire Derby
Famous quotes containing the word matches:
“That matches are made in heaven, may be, but my wife would have been just the wife for Peter the Great, or Peter Piper. How would she have set in order that huge littered empire of the one, and with indefatigable painstaking picked the peck of pickled peppers for the other.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“But, most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“No phallic hero, no matter what he does to himself or to another to prove his courage, ever matches the solitary, existential courage of the woman who gives birth.”
—Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)