Preston North End v. Shrewsbury Town [FA Cup 2nd Round] 1-0
Deepdale: The true home of football.
A strong statement. But one I think is arguable. That said, anything is arguable. I could argue that my Uncle Bob's penis is worshiped by tribes in Papua New Guinea for example. Doesn't make it true. I don't even have an Uncle Bob. But I digress.
Deepdale today is made up of four stands all completely re-built between 1995 & 2008 - The most recent 5,000 seater "Invincibles Pavillion" that I was in this afternoon being opened just six years ago. But this is hallowed ground, being still on the site of the original ground that Preston North End have played on since 1878.
In 1889, the Football League's inaugural season was won by Preston North End, along with the FA Cup to complete the first ever "Double" - and the team that did it remained unbeaten all season in both competitions, and have gone down in history as The Invincibles. In the 125 years since that 1st Football League season, only Arsenal have equalled those 1st Invincibles and gone a league campaign unbeaten in English football.
So it was apt I thought that on the day when Premier League leaders Chelsea gave up this season's last unbeaten record at Newcastle, I saw the exclusion of another entrant into Preston & Arsenal's exclusive club on a TV screen underneath the Invincibles Pavillion.
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| St Walburge's: Tallest in England. |
This game was the first of a weekend double-header of sexy 92 club action - so I set off early for West Lancashire on this cold, sunny December morning to check-in to my B&B for the night on the edge of town.
From here it was a leisurely 25-minute walk into the city centre, past one quite impressive landmark of St. Walburge's Church - famous (apparently) for having the tallest spire of any Parish church in all of England.
Well, it certainly was fucking tall.
I had about 2 hours to kill before kick-off at Deepdale, so I headed on into town wondering what I'd find.
I didn't hold up much hope of finding very much; having asked a couple of Prestonians what there was to see I was told the only point of interest was the biggest bus station in Europe. So I was quite surprised at how impressive some of the centre was.
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| Preston Market Square: Very Nice. |
There were some quite lovely civic buildings, especially the library and museum in the Market Square, and I only wish I'd had enough time to have give the Harris Museum & Art Gallery a once over. I like to pretend I understand high art sometimes by walking around such places and holding my chin and humming knowingly to myself.
As it was, I barely had time for a cup of Parched Peas before it was time to head up to Deepdale. Yes, that's right - Parched Peas. There were a couple of Parched Pea-merchants set up around Market Square, but I was quite obviously drawn to this chap and his "Prestonian" stall.
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| Parched Pea Vendor Extraordinaire. |
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| A Cup o' Parched Peas: Preston Favourite. |
"You haven't been to Preston if you haven't tried a cup o'Parched Peas!" said the vendor. Well - I've now been to Preston - and the peas were quite nice - basically black peas slow-boiled to create a delicious & filling mushy pea variant. Lovely stuff.
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| Halal Meat - Haram Football? |
It was another 25min walk up to the ground, to which I took a slightly longer back route via some classic red-brick northern terraced streets in-between the Deepdale & Skeffington Roads, which was very much a South Asian and Muslim residential area these days, framed by a mosque and Islamic learning centre on the edge, with Sari shops, family-run newsagents or Halal Butchers on seemingly every corner in this bustling part of the town.
60 years ago, these streets would have surely been the heartbeat of core support for the successful football team on it's doorstep. 30 minutes before match day the streets would have surely been thronged with working men and children, on their way to the game with their scarves, flat caps and wooden rattles.
Maybe that's an overly nostalgic & rose-tinted view of what it would have looked like back then, but I couldn't help feeling it was sad that the streets were more or less deserted this afternoon.
What a shame that PNE doesn't draw much support from such a vibrant, working-class Asian community right at the club's door. Indeed, it still seems to be a very rare thing to see many South Asian faces at football games in England, even in cities such as Preston with a large ethnic population.
Why is that? Lack of acceptance by the traditional white working-class communities you associate with football? Lack of integration into said communities by an insular immigrant population?
Either way it is a shame. Surely a question for another time but I'd be interested to know if many clubs with such communities on their doorstep ever try to reach out and get their neighbours invested in their community's football team?
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| Finney Statue: Football Legend. |
The highlight of any visit to Deepdale is of course the remarkable "Splash" statue of Sir Tom Finney in front of the ground. Finney is hands down the greatest player to have run out in the white shirts of Preston, and indeed to fans of his generation many would say one of the greatest ever to play for England.
As one Preston fan told me, his death earlier this year brought the city to it's knees. Behind Finney's statue, in one of the corners of the stadium, is an ugly and starkly empty concrete and glass structure that until 2010 was home to the National Football Museum.
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| An empty shell that used to be the National Football Museum. Shame. |
Since then the museum has re-located to a new home in Manchester city centre- apparently a better location to take advantage of a greater footfall of visitors. Sure enough, there are more people that might pop in now it's in the country's second most populous urban area, but I'm sure that misses the point somewhat.
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Preston's Deepdale might arguably be an ugly modern concrete 4-sider, on the edge of an unfashionable city, but there is real football heritage here - and was as good a place as any for siting a museum charting the history of the game in this country. It should have remained here, in my opinion.
So, into the ground. As noted above Deepdale has just finished being completely rebuilt, the re-development based on the Luigi Ferrari stadium in Italy - home to Serie A clubs Genoa and Sampdoria.
It's not a bad ground to be honest - what it lacks in character of the actual stands it makes up for a little bit with the faces of old Preston heroes in three of the stands that respectively bear their names - Bill Shankly, Alan Kelly and of course - Sir Tom Finney.
It might not have been much of a draw for Preston fans - the visit of Shrewsbury. But nonetheless I was disappointed by the lack of any real atmosphere within the ground during the game. The travelling Salopians were in reasonable voice but didn't have an awful lot to sing about to be honest - it wasn't much of a game to write home about and Preston, despite missing a penalty late on weren't exactly inspiring.
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| Corner of Kelly & Finney Stands. |
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| The Bill Shankly Kop |
That late missed penalty by Preston substitute Paul Gallagher was a very strange one. He stood on the ball with his back to the goal, seemingly hyper-ventilating until the referee blew his whistle, then immediately took 7 massive strides away from the goal before rapidly turning around and running towards the ball with his head down and without ever looking at the goal... and proceeded to kick it 15 yards wide and 30 rows deep into the travelling Shrews fans.
Very odd.
My ticket in the Invincibles Pavillion seemed to be for a seat that didn't exist in-between the home and away dug-out seats. If I had demanded to be placed in my allotted seat I'd have been sat next to the fellow on his own on the back row. I think I might even have got a game, you know.
So I had to find another seat, and ended up sat with the posh folks in the padded seats at the back in the 2nd half, and even managed to sneak into the lounge after the game for a quick warming pint before heading back into the city.
I had a night in Preston and I was up for a drink or two. I'd been recommended a good Indian Restaurant by a nice couple I was chatting to in the posh seats, and headed off there to East ZEast on Church Street.
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| Curry Lancashire Style: Nans the size of your Head! |
Going for a curry in the North of England is a totally different experience from the South. No relaxing bollywood instrumental music to listen to here as you quietly crack a few poppadoms whilst waiting for your Jalfrezi amidst 70s wallpaper and warm-coloured carpets.
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| Proper Northern Curry: Balti Beautiful. |
It was pumping loud dance music, sleek black shiny flooring and red decor, and tables of 10-20 revellers a-piece tucking into family-sized nans and keema-sauced Baltis as the start to a night on the tiles in the pubs and clubs.
And it was a damn good feed, too.
The fact that it's now Monday and I'm only just getting round to writing this tells that it didn't quite pan out that way.
I started by going across the road from the restaurant to Hogarth's Gin Palace, a beautiful old converted Victorian building where I managed to score the first real ale of the day.
Another difference to a night out in Preston to climes I'm more used to is the surprising lack of cask ale that is drunk in these parts - I'm not sure if that's an exclusively Prestony thing or whether I was just unlucky in my pub choices, but I walked into about 3 pubs in the city where the choice was limited to crap lager (usually Fosters), OK lager (Stella or Kronenburg) and shit keg bitter (exclusively John Smiths).
It wasn't doing the city any favours in my lasting opinion of it until I headed into Hogarths and paid £1.95 for a real beer. Unbelievable value! The helpful barman told me that real ale prices were so low here simply because no-one drank it, so it was cheap to try and get people drinking it.
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| Hogarth's Gin Palace, Preston: A Real Tonic. |
He also tried to peddle one of the 134 gins they had on offer to me, and even gave me a "gin bible" to skim through. By now though I was ready to go back to the hotel, my phone had died and I was only half-sure of the way back to it without google maps.
I walked passed one other pub that proclaimed to be a purveyor of real beer, and decided to have one last nightcap. It turns out that "Angels" pub was aptly named, as it was that evening hosting the Liverpool branch of Hell's Angels.
I'd already committed to entering the pub by the time I got the funny looks from the hairy, leather-clad chaps in there, so pushed on through what I perceived as a latent threat of getting my face smashed in for not knowing my Harley Davidson from my, errr... well exactly.
But as it happens, what I remember of the next few hours was nothing but a blur of being warmly welcomed by these biker chaps to join them in consuming copious amounts of alcohol in a variety of different forms. Sadly due to an expired phone, no photos exist of this part of the evening - and that is most definitely a good thing.
The Bikers took to me as a novelty - thinking I was absolutely mental to find myself in Preston on my own on a Saturday night having travelled up to watch a random football game. And they were probably right.
The last thing I remember of the night is the 2nd or 3rd round of JaegerBombs being ordered. My next conscious hour being waking up in my hotel bed fully clothed, still in my coat and with the lights still on at 3.45am.
To some that's the sign of a good night. To me, it was a wonder as to how the hell I got back to the hotel, and the realisation that tomorrow was going to start with an almighty fucking headache before my drive to Barnsley.
Preston didn't only win the football match on Saturday - Preston also beat me that night - quite convincingly.
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