With heavy snow forecast in the next twenty four hours for an area running from Stoke in the south to Durham in the north, I suppose there’s a chance that Saturday’s game at Deepdale against Preston may not go ahead. On the face of it, that would be bad news for City because, with three wins from four, they’re in decent form and although I’ve mentioned before that we’ve taken some right thrashings at Preston down the years, we’ve also had more than our fair share of wins there (including in our last three trips). Preston also have an even worse home record than us despite them being in a safe, mid table, position, but I think the bottom line for us is that we’ve proved over nearly three quarters of a season that we’re not good enough to instil a feeling of confidence in supporters no matter who we’re due to play in this division, so I’ll go with my usual, boring, I’ll be happy with a draw line.
On the assumption the game goes ahead, here’s seven Preston related questions covering every decade back to the sixties, I’ll post the answers on here on Sunday.
60s. This question overlaps into the seventies – what started in City v Preston fixtures in the notorious 9-0 loss at Deepdale in May 1966 and continued through the next fourteen matches between the clubs until a City win at Ninian Park exactly forty nine years ago today?
70s. Although he never represented Scotland, the country of his birth, had he done so, this defender may have been in opposition to the Englishman who shared his surname and, often played in the same position as him. All of his senior football was played south of the border, starting at a club where he played alongside a future City manager in a promotion winning team that returned to what I’d guess their supporters think of as their rightful home to this day. After just short of a decade, he moved on to Preston where he twice won Player of the Year awards during a seven year stay which saw him face City on numerous occasions. When he left Preston, it was to play for a club which would be managed by another one time City boss in the future. This club dropped a long way in recent years, but are now on their way back it seems having broken some Welsh hearts last season – name the player I’m describing.
80s. Cool orange northern doctor transforms into Preston midfield man! (6,7)
90s. What’s the connection between Radio One and a Preston midfielder who broke into their team at the back end of this decade?
00s. What is the progression which takes you from the inventor of a horse drawn seed drill to a musical front man and then, aurally at least, on to a Preston record signing early in this decade?
10s. Old county type at the back!
20s. Which member of the Preston first team squad, who has won full caps for his country, had a loan spell at the last senior club in the English and Scottish leagues, to install floodlights in their ground (they didn’t do so until 1981) before his move to Lancashire?
Answers.
60s. Don Murray started a run of being in the starting eleven for a run of fifteen consecutive City v Preston fixtures in the 9-0 defeat in the final game of the 65/66 season and it ended in the 2-0 home win on 9 March 1975 in which Phil Dwyer scored his first goal for the club.
70s. Jim McNab played for Sunderland between 1958 and 1967, he was part of their 1963/64 side that won promotion to First Division in 63/64 when Len Ashurst was one of his team mates. After just short of three hundred league games for Sunderland, McNab signed for Preston where he played over two hundred and twenty more times in the league until his departure in 1974. The final two years of McNab’s career were spent at Stockport County.
80s.Gordon Coleman.
90s. Paul McKenna is a hypnotist and self help guru who worked for Radio One in the 1990s. Later on in the decade, a midfield player with the same name broke into the Preston team,, playing the first of what would be more than four hundred league games for them in 1997.
00s. Jethro Tull invented a horse drawn seed drill in the seventeenth century which revolutionised farming in this country. Over three hundred years later his name became famous again as Jehtro Tull became a very successful rock band in the late sixties and seventies fronted by a quirky flautist called Ian Anderson. Iain Anderson is former winger who signed for Preston in 2000 for a then club record fee of £500,000 and played for them for the next three years.
10s. Paul Huntingdon spent a decade at Preston between 2012 and 2022.
20s. Northern Ireland international Ali McCann was sent on loan to Stranraer when he was with St Johnstone – Stair Park, Stranraer was the last ground in senior English and Scottish football to have floodlights installed.
