Preston North End and Manchester United are two of the most established names of English football, Lancashire clubs based only 50 kilometres apart.
Preston were the first Football League champions in 1889, a season in which they were unbeaten and also won the FA Cup.
They retained their league title the following year but have not won it since, though they have finished runners’ up six times, the most recent in 1958.
They won another FA Cup in 1938 and reached the final a further five times, the last in 1964.
Yet Preston, who play in England’s third tier, have not played United in a competitive game for 43 years – a 1972 FA Cup tie.
Preston were a second level club then, having last played in England’s top flight in 1961.
“My dad was at the game in 1972 because he wanted to see George Best,” said former Premier League winger and Republic of Ireland international Kevin Kilbane, who grew up 200 metres from Preston’s Deepdale home.
A United side containing three European Footballers of the Year – Denis Law, Bobby Charlton and George Best, plus Brian Kidd who had scored in the 1968 European Cup final – won 2-0.
None of the aforementioned scored, with the lesser-known Alan Gowling scoring twice.
Preston would sink lower and lower. Kilbane started going to games in the 1980s and Preston were relegated to the fourth division for the first time in their history in 1985.
A year later, their fortunes would decline further.
“I saw North End finish second bottom of the old Division 4 in 1986 and seek re-election to stay in the league and keep their senior status,” said Kilbane, who began his playing career at Preston and would play in England’s top flight with Sunderland, Everton, Wigan Athletic and Hull City.
“There have been more lows than highs and I’m sure fans of most clubs would say the same.
“We didn’t get in the FA Cup third round too often. We played Sheffield Wednesday once and that was about it. The lads I used to go to games with are all really excited about the United match.”
The 1986 re-election would be as bad as it got. That summer, Preston installed a plastic pitch and Kilbane was a ball boy the following season when they were promoted.
Brian Mooney, an Irish midfielder, released by Liverpool in 1987, was a star.
“The king of the plastic,” Kilbane said. “He was my hero. We’d sing: ‘Mooney, Mooney’.”
Kilbane would soon be sharing a dressing room with his heroes, first as an apprentice.
“The manager John Beck would always take a young player to away games to make toast on the bus,” he said. “The toaster was terrible, though, it would only do one side. I’d make Tony Ellis, a striker who was a crowd favourite, some toast and he’d send it back complaining.”
Kilbane made his debut in 1995 with defender David Moyes the strongest character in the team.
Manager Gary Peters promoted Moyes to player-coach and the pair drove to Walsall one night to scout a young Manchester United player.
“David Beckham was a skinny boy, and I said to Gary in the car on the way home: ‘he’s not going to be strong enough for us’,” Moyes said.
“Gary said: ‘No, he’ll be fine’, and he was. Even though he only came for a month, Becks was fantastic. We got promoted at Orient, and David and his dad came into the dressing room. He was in United’s first team by then but he didn’t forget us.”
Moyes would become manager and lead a transformation at Deepdale.
ALSO READ:
WWE’s Bad News Barrett hopes Preston North End can shock Manchester United in FA Cup
Arsene Wenger backs Manchester United tactics: ‘There was no reason for Van Gaal to defend himself’
‘You know the world is against you’: Louis van Gaal relishes Manchester United’s FA Cup odyssey
“Preston’s success for a decade was down to him, first as a leader on the pitch and then as manager,” Kilbane said. “He put the structure in for (subsequent managers) Craig Brown and Billy Davies to do well. ‘Moysie’ took over the club in the bottom tier of English football and left us in the championship.”
It helped that Preston’s fortunes have improved considerably on the field in the past 12 years – largely mirroring those of a city with England’s sixth biggest university with 33,000 students.
Preston’s rise started in 1996, a season after Beckham’s loan spell from Manchester United, with the third division title (now League Two).
At 34 years old in 1998, Moyes became manager and guided Preston to the second level as champions in 2000. Striker David Healy arrived from Manchester United for £1.5 million (Dh8.8m) later that year, an illustration of the club’s progress.
With him, Preston almost made it to the Premier League a year later, but were defeated 3-0 by Bolton Wanderers in the Division 1 play-off final.
It was to become a familiar pattern – Preston coming close to the Premiership before failing at the play-offs.
“Even the stadium was transformed while David Moyes was there,” Kilbane said.
By the 1990s, Deepdale, with closed-off terracing, was no home for “Proud Preston”, but inspiration came from long-time fan and graphic designer Ben Casey.
When his plans for a new Deepdale, modelled on Genoa’s architecturally stunning post-modern Luigi Ferrari Stadium, were published in the local newspaper, they appeared fanciful and a little too dynamic for a club in the third division.
But, bit by bit, Preston remained true to them, constructing four new stands over 13 years as the capacity rose to 24,000.
The first featured Tom Finney’s face picked out from the seats, while the Bill Shankly Kop – Bill Shankly, the legendary Liverpool manager, spent 16 years as a player at Deepdale – picks out the face of that other former Preston great.
Shankly’s star status was only surpassed by Finney, one of England’s greatest players.
The “peerless plumber”, as he was known because he was still working in his other trade when he started out as a professional, is rated by many as the all-time best English No 7 and died a year ago at age 91.
A wonderful sculpture of him inspired by the 1956 Sports Photograph of the Year, which features Finney beating two defenders at a waterlogged Stamford Bridge, stands outside Deepdale and fans will applaud through the seventh minute of tonight’s tie in memory of their greatest player.
In June 2001, the National Football museum opened at Deepdale.
The museum has since relocated to regional powerhouse Manchester where it attracts more visitors, but Deepdale looks glorious and almost 5,000 United fans will fill the Shankly Kop on Monday.
Though Preston were relegated to England’s third tier in 2011, their wage bill, attendance and stadium is sufficient to support a Championship level club.
They only overreached when they nearly made it to the Premier League.
“We were twice beaten in the play-off finals to go up to the Premier League,” said Kilbane.
Preston’s disappointment was confounded when all their neighbouring rivals went up.
“Blackpool, Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley and Wigan all played in the Premier League,” said Kilbane, who Preston sold for a record £1m fee in 1997 to West Bromwich Albion.
“But hopefully I’ll see Preston in the Premier League in my lifetime. Seeing us play Manchester United is a start. It’s a game I’ve waited all my life to see.”
Follow us on Twitter at our new home at NatSportUAE
