Deepdale Celebrates 150 Years Of Football
For 150 years, the roar of the crowd has echoed through Deepdale, the hallowed turf where Preston North End has etched its name into footballing history, writes Peter Benson
The history of Preston North End is familiar to many people in these parts. Be it the original Invincibles of 1888/89, the FA Cup triumph of 1938 and most famously of all, the era of Sir Tom Finney in the 1950s. Through all these events – as players, managers and supporters have come and gone – one constant has remained – the club’s home of Deepdale. It is the oldest continually used football stadium in the world and this year marks 150 years of sport at the venue.
The football club was founded in 1880, but its story began in January 1875 when the site was used for both cricket and rugby. But as the popularity of football grew, the club joined the Lancashire Football Union in 1880, eventually becoming one of the founder members of The Football League in 1888. Success swiftly followed, with that Invincibles side surging to an undefeated league and cup double.
The FA Cup winning year of 1938 also saw the largest ever attendance at Deepdale of 42,684 against Arsenal. A League War Cup win would follow in 1941 and usher in the career of Preston’s greatest ever player – Sir Tom Finney. Finney would finally retire in 1960, having come agonisingly close to delivering silverware for his hometown club, with a 1954 FA Cup Final defeat and missing out on a First Division title on mere goal difference in 1953.
Finney’s final season in 1960 was followed by relegation the following year. His retirement has become synonymous with not just the decline of the football team, but of Deepdale as well in the 30 or so years after he hung up his boots. The club has never returned to the top flight since. As the prospects of the team decayed, the ground crumbled. The 1980s was the darkest decade of the club’s history. In 1985 the floodlight pylons were condemned as unsafe, forcing the club to play a midweek game during the day. Capacity continued to drop as parts of the ground were closed for safety reasons. The famous ground that had once welcomed over 40,000 fans saw attendances drop to four figures.
The fortunes of the club – and even more so the stadium – would be revitalised in 1994 when Baxi completed their takeover of North End. Through floating on the stock exchange, the club raised the funds to transform Deepdale. The man tasked with this overhaul was Preston-born and bred designer Ben Casey. Re-developed one side at a time, the first stand was completed in 1996 but it would take until 2008 for all four to be completed.
Casey’s design took inspiration from Stadio Luigi Ferraris in Genoa, with the iconic floodlights in the Ligurian city being mirrored in the transformation of Deepdale. Floodlight towers are such a practical piece of equipment, yet they represent so much more to many football supporters. Traditionally they would signify that you were approaching the ground, standing tall amongst the residential houses around them as fans funnelled through the narrow streets.
You simply do not see towering floodlights incorporated into modern stadia plans nowadays, but what Casey’s design managed to capture so perfectly was that fusion of old and new, tradition and progress – a fantastic new stadium but still deeply rooted in its history. Credit must go to the club for choosing to redevelop Deepdale, rather than choose a new out-of-town location where they could build from scratch but lose the emotional and nostalgic connection.
Each brand-new stand echoes that nostalgia – named after club legends Finney, Shankly and Kelly along with recognition for those original Invincibles – yet offering the club modern facilities for the future. You can see Deepdale from the M65 (again thanks to those floodlights), the view of the stadium across Moor Park whether lit up at night or on a misty morning is iconic. Deepdale is incredibly photogenic; the advent of the drone has opened new opportunities for aerial images of a stadium that is like no other in this country.
Speak to a Preston fan these days and they will tell you this sense of history and tradition is both a source of pride as well as pain. Every famous memory of this club is in black and white. The football landscape has shifted radically since those days, but fans will continue to dream of seeing their team at English football’s top table once more with Deepdale taking centre stage.
