And so to Deepdale, the long-standing home of Preston North End, for Wednesday evening’s fourth-round Carabao Cup tie.
Deepdale was initially a cricket ground. Preston North End CC leased a field on Deepdale Farm in 1875, and the cricketers started playing football three years later to keep fit during the winter after a failed flirtation with rugby to the same end. Preston North End FC was formally founded in 1880.
Deepdale was also used for baseball. Preston North End Baseball Club, run by the same men who ran the football club, competed in the professional National Baseball League of Great Britain’s sole season, 1890. Aston Villa, Derby County and Stoke were other football clubs involved, as were the county cricket clubs of Gloucestershire, Essex and Staffordshire.
The same summer, PNE’s amateur side won the Amateur Championship Baseball Cup of Great Britain, sponsored by US sports equipment maker Spalding, whose eponymous founder, Albert Goodwill Spalding, was a tireless proselytiser of the game in Britain. It gained some traction in Yorkshire, which had 90 teams at one point, and the East Midlands. Older ‘holics may remember that Derby County used to play at The Baseball Ground.
Preston holds that Deepdale is the oldest ground continuously used for football. There are other claimants to that accolade. The original stadium hosted its record crowd of 38,000-42,000 (accounts vary, but contemporary ones cite the lower figure) for our top-of-the-table league visit in 1938. It was demolished in four phases around the turn of the Millennium and morphed into the modern 23,000-seat Deepdale of today. We last visited in 2017 for an FA Cup tie won by an 89th-minute Olivier Giroud goal.
Rock bottom
Preston was the inaugural winner of the Football League in 1888-89. Its team went unbeaten, winning 18 of 22 matches, and lifted the FA Cup without conceding a goal. Thus, it was the first team to do the double and the first Invincibles. Its starting XI contained seven ‘Scotch professors’, the skilful pioneers of short-passing ‘combination play’ lured by the lucre of the Football League clubs from the still amateur game north of the border when English football was still getting over being little more than a rugby maul without handling.
Preston would win the league again the following season, but their unbeaten run ended in the second game, a 5-3 defeat at Villa Park. Yet by the time we first visited Deepdale in September 1901, all that history was history. Preston had fallen into the Second Division, and over the decades that followed, they would spend as many seasons out of the top flight as in. Their only additional silverware was a solitary FA Cup in 1938.
Following the retirement of the legendary Tom Finney, they again dropped out of the old First Division in 1960-61. It would only get worse. In 1985-86, they had to apply for re-election to the old Fourth Division and nearly folded. The Lilywhites have since stutteringly climbed back to the Championship, where they have settled since 2015 after nine Play-Off attempts across the second, third and fourth tiers.
After a 3-3 draw at the weekend against Wayne Rooney’s Plymouth Argyle, having let a 3-0 lead slip, Preston currently lie 16th in the Championship, with three wins (all at home), five draws and four losses.
Heckingbottom
Ex-Sheffield United manager Paul Heckingbottom replaced Ryan Lowe in the Deepdale dugout after the first game of this season. Heckingbottom has vacillated in the league between the 3-5-2 he favoured at Bramall Lane and 4-2-3-1. However, he played a 4-4-2 in the second and third rounds of the league cup against Harrogate Town (thumped 5-0) and Fulham (beaten 17-16 on penalties after 1-1 at full time). In the only two games Heckingbottom has managed against us, both last season, the Blades got beaten 5-0 when he used a 4-4-2 and 3-0 using a 3-5-2.
Former England U-21 keeper Freddie Woodman will be their best-known name, although some ‘holics may recall midfielder Sam Greenwood. He was with our U-18s for two years before moving to Leeds in 2020. He has moved across the Pennines on loan.
If Heckingbottom goes with a back three, it will probably comprise Jordan Storey, Liam Lindsey and Welsh veteran Andrew Hughes. All three are good in the air and have plied their trade in the Championship and Leagues One and Two, although Lindsay played 64 games for Partick Thistle in the Scottish Premiership. Former Stuttgart centre-back Patrick Bauer, who also has top-flight experience in Portugal, is out injured.
Three of club skipper Ben Whiteman, Edinburgh-born Northern Ireland international Ali McCann, Dane Mads Frøkjær-Jensen and Icelandic international Stefán Teitur Thórdarson, who arrived from Silkeborg in the summer for 830,000 euros, will provide the core of the midfield. At wing-back, Brad Potts, newly returned from injury, will likely get the nod over Josh Bowler, a Forest loanee who missed the Plymouth game because of illness. Potts would drop to right-back if Heckingbottom goes with a back four.
Robbie Brady, who has 68 Ireland caps and played over 150 Premier League games, would have been a shoo-in to start on the left but did his ankle ligaments against Plymouth. With Potts back, Kaine Kesler-Hayden, a promising youngster on loan from Villa, will likely switch from right wing-back to left. Ryan Ledson, who scored the winner in the penalty marathon against Fulham, is an option from the bench.
Heckingbottom floods the midfield with bodies and tends to make extensive tactical substitutions there during games, so there is a good chance of seeing most of them.
Upfront, Greenwood or former US international Duane Holmes will play behind another Dane, Emil Riis. First-choice centre forward Milutin Osmajic, a Montenegro international, is serving an eight-game suspension for channelling his inner Luis Suarez and biting Blackburn Rovers’ Owen Beck. Welsh international Chad Evans and Ireland international Will Keane, both ahead of Riis in the PNE pecking order and both of whom have played in the Premier League, are long-term injury absentees.
Despite not appearing since last month, Osmajic is still Preston’s joint top scorer alongside Riis, Greenwood and Frøkjær-Jensen — with two. Goals have been a problem — only 13 scored in 12 league games, while the defence has conceded 17.
The Arsenal
Arteta says he will play a strong team, but after the exertions of the Liverpool game and with a trip to Geordie Arabia in prospect, he will rest legs regardless. Gabriel and Calafiori likely will not be available, but Timber is. I can see him, Partey, Rice, Havertz, Trossard and Martinelli all starting on the bench, along with the lesser-spotted Zinchenko, Raya (but not Neto, who is cup-tied) and some youngsters (Nichols, Kacurri, Kabia). Predicting team selection in these games is always a lottery. I’ll take a chance on:
Setford
White, Saliba, Kiwior, Lewis-Skelly
Jorginho, Merino, Nwaneri
Saka, Jesus, Sterling
Preston will be typical Championship opposition, full of hard-working battlers in their mid-to-late twenties, good players whose careers haven’t quite fulfilled early promise. They will be short of Premier League quality, especially with Brady missing. They haven’t lost at Deepdale this season under Heckingbottom. Their one defeat came under Lowe. They are unbeaten in five, and will see this game as a free hit. We’ll have to put in a shift, but we should have the quality to beat them by at least two or three goals.
There is no VAR for this game. It will all be on the man with the whistle, Peter Bankes, from Merseyside, you’ll be shocked to learn, although he has given us only six yellow cards in eight games, of which we have won five.
A final note for CER, C100 and other travelling ‘holics: Preston’s Victorian Black Horse pub in Friargate is a semi-finalist for CAMRA’s Pub of the Year, 2024 award.
Enjoy the game, ‘holics, near and far.
Superb, amazingly comprehensive preview . While I’ve been in Preston occasionally I never knew of its association with baseball.
I also didn’t know much about their team or this season’s form.
I hope Mikel gives Saliba a rest and includes Josh Nichols moving Benny Bianco over .I like the midfield but hope that we don’t start Saka . I wonder if we might see Kabia or even Trossard starting
2-0 to the Arsenal!
Thanks Ned, you did Preston proud with a romp through days of yore.
I like both your and TTG’s suggested XI’s but as you say it is a bit of lottery trying to get the right side. My main hope is no more defensive injuries.
With 64 games for the Jags in his locker, Liam Lindsay is clearly a man to be feared. Anyone who has spent that number of hours in Partick should not be allowed within 200 miles of Starboy Bukayo.
Your team looks a bit rich to me, Ned, but Mikel will want a win.
But Saka? Please no.
Superb detail by the way. Great stuff.
Having considered it I think this is the team
Setford
MLS. White. Kiwior. Zinchenko
Jorginho. Merino
Sterling. Nwaneri Martinelli
Jesus
Subs – Porter , Nichols , Kacurri , Heaven , Rice , Trossard , Havertz , Kabia , Butler- Odeyeji
Superb preview, Ned, Ihad no idea about the history of baseball in England and always wondered why Derby’s ground was so named.
Butler-Oyedeji played on Monday night for the u-21 s so I wouldn’t expect him in the squad, but who knows with Mikel.
Thanks Ned
Excellent preview with lots of unknown stuff as usual. I fancy a 3-1 win.
On a different note, I understand that Jamie Carragher has suggested that MA is turning into Jose Mourinho.
Being so far away and not much exposed to this sort of nonsense, can anybody please explain how a second-rate ex-player scouser is actually paid for analysis (assuming that he is) that nobody in their right minds would value? Baffling.
UTA.
A characteristically informative preview, Ned, with some fantastic pearls of new information. But, while your selection may be closer to MA8’s starting 11 than mine, I would under no circumstances allow Saliba, Timber and especially Saka to travel as we cannot afford to lose any more key players before the trio of challenging away games on the horizon. I would be happy with TTG’s suggested 11 which gives talented youth a start and game time to some players who need minutes but I would add some first teamers to the bench for emergency use only but definitely not include the three named above. I know MA8 wants to win every game but I have never regarded the League Cup as of any consequence and we have bigger fish to fry. Our competitiveness in those competitions should not be compromised by this minnow. 2-1 would be fine. No more injuries would be delightful.
(Not so) shockingly fact-filled and detailed. One of your best, Ned, although when have you given anything less? All who’s participating, enjoy the journey to the deepest depths (and highest heights, if any) of Lancs, and if you can find it, the realest of the “real” ale.
Come on lads, we can do this!
Thanks for the kind words, all. Glad you enjoyed the tidbit on baseball, timely as we are in the middle of the World Series, played, as it always is, between two American teams. For CER, here’s the rest of story on The Baseball Ground.
Derby County’s old Baseball Ground was originally the baseball field in a sports complex called Ley’s Recreation Centre, built by local industrialist Sir Francis Ley for the workers at his ironworks. When visiting the United States in 1889, Ley was taken by how US companies provided recreational baseball fields to keep their workerforce healthy and productive. He laid out the Rec Centre on his return. Ley’s Baseball Ground was home to the works’ baseball team, Derby Baseball Club, from 1890 until its demise in 1898 despite Ley’s efforts to promote the game in Britain. Derby County FC, the county cricket club’s football side, became winter tenants in 1895 and bought the ground, by then long known as just The Baseball Ground, from Ley’s descendants in 1924. They stayed there until they moved to Pride Park in 1997. The Baseball Ground was demolished in 2003.
Back to proper sport: My two cents on the centre-back pairing for the Preston game is that it depends on the prognosis for Gabriel. If the Brazilian is expected to be fit for Saturday’s trip to Newcastle, then Arteta can rest Saliba and play a back four of Timber, White, Kiwior and MLS. If Gabriel is going to miss several games, then Arteta will want to bed in whatever the temporary centre-back pairing is going to be: Saliba and one of White, Timber and Kiwior in the absence of Calafiori, who would, I assume, be the first choice, but whom we may not see until December.
Thanks, Ned – more superb research – is there anything I don’t now know about PNE ?
The Derby link to the Baseball Ground is illuminating.
Gabriel reportedly fit – Calafiori not. “Jose” Arteta giving nothing away. As long as his admiration for the loathsome Portuguese goes no further than winning trophies and doesn’t morph into copying his personal traits ….
Cheers Ned!
The last game at The Baseball Ground saw Arsenal beat Derby County 3-1, in 1997. I was there.
Arsenal: Setford, Timber, Saliba, Kiwior, Zinchenko, Jorginho, Nwaneri, Merino, Sterling, Jesus, Martinelli
Subs: Raya, Lewis-Skelly, Heaven, Nichols, Partey, Rice, Saka, Trossard, Havertz
Esso@12: Excellent. Your place in history is assured.
Seeing as Ned just about tried to predict the Preston team, here’s the actual Preston xi: Woodman, Hughes, Lindsay, Whatmough, Kesler-Hayden, Ledson, Þórðarson, Bowler, Okkels, Holmes, Greenwood.
No phonetic or audio pronunciation guides available to assist with saying Þórðarson, sorry not to be of greater service. Also no word on the Preston formation to be employed.
Pretty good stabs at the team selection from Ned and TTG.
Quite a strong XI from MA.
I hope Jesus gets a goal
And the best of luck to Tommy Setford.
Preston have made six changes too apparently
Cheers Ned. Fantastic preview with so much interesting detail and yet a breezy read. I loved it.
I’m hoping for a good game for Nwaneri and Setford.
And Arsenal!
COYG
Arezzo is sadly lacking in bars showing the Fourth Rd of the Carabao Cup, which in fact appears to be virtually unknown in Tuscany.
However, 2-0 at half time with a couple of excellent goals I have seen courtesy of Live Blogs looks like a good away trip for our intrepid Holics deep in the dales (?)
I liked the team effort on the first and was very pleased to see Jesus on the scoresheet.
But the 2nd from Nwaneri was very classy, it always looks highlight good when the keeper doesn’t move.
Three strikes and Preston are out.
I’ll get my coat…
Palace at home in the quarter-finals. Winnable.
Arsenal v Crystal Palace
Newcastle v Brentford
Southampton v Liverpool
Tottenham v Manchester United
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>