A Great lower league venue (Deepdale (Preston North End FC))

Member Name: iamasadlittleboy

Product:	Deepdale (Preston North End FC)
Date:	07/02/09 (163 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, lovely area, history

Disadvantages: Not the biggest or the best

The home of Preston North end, and you could say the home football in the historical sense. The stadium is found in the Deepdale are of Preston, along Tom finney way. Despite not having been to the stadium for a few years (we went a few times when they played West Ham as my mums a west ham fan who can only get to the games oop norf), and so I'm using Wiki to help me as my memory is dire.

The site of the stadium is the OLDEST in the world as PNE are one of the founding members of the Football Association and as many of them have either become defunct, or moved from their spiritual home, this makes Deepdale effectively the home of football. The stadium was first built in 1860 and first used by PNE in January 1878.
Although saying that the stadium has under gone many changes in the last 150 years, and has actually just been under going some.
Terracing was the first thing to be added in around 1890, and a tent was erected for the changing rooms. roofing and actual stands were added in the 1920's, which were sadly burnt down in 1933. 5 Years later the ground reached it's attendance peak of over 42,000 when PNE faced Arsenal, as the stadium was now a two tier ground.
By the 1980's the ground had seats as well as terraces, and the roofing was extended, also in the 1980's was the plastic pitch that was layed in '86 which lasted for 8 years until being ripped up due to unpopularity.

The mid 90's lead to the biggest rennovation in the ground, where almost £4.5 million was spent on the New Tom Finney Stand which houses 8,000 seats, a restaurant and some offices. The Bill shankley Kop followed in 1998 with the national football museum underneath the two stands. Next Came the Alan Kelly stand and the finally the Invinceble's Pavillion which leads the stadium at 23,408 all seater.

The stadium is probably slightly above the average for teams in the same league, but don't go there expecting a theatre of dreams, or a Wembley experience.

Summary: Great for it's level