Another fixture against the team we’ve played more than any other in league football beckons then. The last two occasions when Preston have visited Cardiff City Stadium have seen the matches end in 0-0 draws.
Would a repeat of that outcome be seen as a good result for City? I very much doubt it, but, given our abysmal home results since 2020, a couple of draws isn’t too bad really and clean sheets are to be welcomed at any time given how few of them we’ve had on our own ground in recent years.
However, even though the transfer window newcomers and the returning Aaron Ramsey had little obvious impact on the outcome, last week’s 1-0 win at Watford has improved the mood among supporters and given that Preston, after a great start to 23/24, are having an erratic season, there will be expectations in some quarters of a home win.
Whether these are justified or not is arguable, there have been far too many examples of a Cardiff away win being followed by a home defeat in the last four years to expect that this latest one should be any different from the rest. I suppose you could say that the new signings, plus Ramsey, helped get a performance out of those who started at Watford because they saw people who could come in to replace them watching on the bench, but we’ve bought in plenty of new players in recent years without stopping the number of home defeats climbing.
For a while in the early autumn, I got confident enough to start predicting the occasional City win in a home game, but I struggle to think of many other times during this decade when I’ve felt confident we could win at Cardiff City Stadium. However, although I can think of no logical reason to justify it, I have a feeling we’re going to win on Saturday – there you are, we know who’s to blame if and when we fall to yet another defeat on our own ground this weekend!
Win, lose or draw, here’s the seven decades quiz for our next match, I’ll post the answers on Sunday.
60s. Never playing for a club outside of Lancashire, this forward’s early career was disrupted by his national service call up and when he returned to play for the home town club he began with, it was in a new position as he moved out wide. Bad luck with an injury denied him a winner’s medal at one time, but he managed to get one a few years later as he made a telling contribution to the triumph. Preston paid a decent fee for the time to sign him, but the three years he was at Deepdale saw the team stuck in a rut which would eventually culminate in relegation. Our man never got to play in the lower level for North End though as he joined what was then a non league team where he played for a season before retiring. As far as international football was concerned, I suppose it could be said that his one cap came a year too early, but who am I describing?
70s. This centre forward came to notice while scoring prolifically for Scottish Undertakers. Eventually signing for a First Division club, he did modestly over a period of two years and when he also struggled at a Yorkshire moor, he moved closer to home and it was here that he began to prove himself as one of the most consistent marksmen outside of the top flight. Before that there was another attempt to establish himself in the First Division in the midlands, which went better than the first one, but he was to experience a relegation before a move back to the club which I suppose was his spiritual home after a short lived stay in the west country did not work out, A cross country move saw him score the winning goal in one of Ninian Park’s most memorable games of the early seventies before a switch to Preston which in terms of scoring rate was perhaps his least successful – he was part of a Preston team that became unwilling holders of a City related record that lasted more than two years. His two seasons at Deepdale were ended by a move which took him close the scene of his undertaking days to play at a ground which still has a crane close by that dominates one end. A short return to England for a third, less successful spell with the club he’s most associated with followed, before he renewed acquaintance with the crane briefly – can you name this player that Wikipedia credits with two hundred and fifty career goals?
80s. What connects
“While I watch the cannons flashing
I clean my gun”
with a convoy of four vehicles which took food to Ukraine from the UK in April 2022 before returning with thirty mothers and children to be looked after in this country and Preston North End in this decade?
90s. Severed Diva somehow leads to prolific scorer! (5,6)
00s. Earliest man polished off it seems!
10s. Missing queen gives you defender who is virtually identified in ancient Ned Miller song.
20s. It doesn’t seem Aladdin was one of them, but surely one of the one Thousand and One Nights was – aurally at least!
Answers:
60s.Liverpool born Derek Temple became a regular starter for Everton through the early sixties, but a cartilage operation meant that he did not play sufficient games in 1962/63 to win a First Division title medal. Three years later, Temple scored the winning goal in one of the more dramatic FA Cup Finals as Everton came back from two down to beat Sheffield Wednesday, but the following year he was sold to Preston for £35,000. Preston were relegated in 68/70 and Temple’s final move saw him sign for Wigan that summer. Temple played once for England, in a 1-0 win over West Germany in 1965
70s. Hugh McIlmoyle’s scoring record with Port Glasgow (the Undertakers) persuaded Leicester City to sign him in 1960, but when that move, and a subsequent one to Rotherham, didn’t work out, it felt like a last chance when he signed for Carlise. McIlmoyle played a full part in that club’s climb to the Second Division and, signed for Wolves where he found goals easier to come by than he did at Leicester, but was unable to stop them being relegated to the Second Division. McIlmoyle ended up back at Carlisle when a very brief move to Bristol City concluded, Two years at Middlesbrough were next for the man for whom the term nomadic striker could have been invented and it was he who scored the winning goal in “the Frank Parsons match” in which Middlesbrough came from 3-1 down to win at Ninian Park in October 1970. At his next club, McIlmoyle was part of a Preston side beaten 2-1 at Deepdale by City in October 1971 in what turned out to be our last league away win until December 1973! Returning to Scotland with Morton, there was one further spell at Carlisle for McIlmoyle before a second spell at Greenock and then retirement.
80s. The lyrics were from Galveston sung by Glen Campbell which reached number 14 in the charts in 1969. Glen Campbell was also a goalkeeper who played for Preston in the early eighties who, at the age of 57, led a convoy to Ukraine to deliver food and bring refugees back to the UK some two months after the Russian invasion.
90s. David Reeves scored thirty three times in his forty seven league games for Preston.
00s. Adam Eaton.
10s. Jack King.
20s. Jordan Storey,