Remembering the North End Gentry - Tributes/Memories/Dedications

[Wembley1964]

My Dad, who introduced me to PNE many years ago. He was essentially a football fan, a Season Ticket holder at Everton (we lived in Runcorn, Cheshire) but when Everton were away he would go with his mates to watch games at Old Trafford, Maine Road, Turf Moor Burnden Park etc. just to see some good football - the North West in those days had some great teams. One year, on our way back home from our annual August holiday at Mrs Wilson's boarding house in Morecambe my dad took me and my brother on to Deepdale for our first visit. It was the first home game of the season, the ground was freshly painted, the grass was lush and green, and the "Three Tommies", Finney, Thompson and Docherty were playing. I fell in love with the place and the team, and it's been that way ever since even though I have no connection with the city. I saw a few games at Deepdale with my Dad, and we also went to Wembley in 1964 - it was just magic to go there again last year and finally put the nightmare of '64 to rest. I lived abroad in Africa for most of the 70's and 80's, tuning into the BBC World Service on Saturdays to get our result, and I am now a Season Ticket holder at Deepdale, residing in Yorkshire, but the 120 mile round trip to home games is well worth it. My Dad died in 1976, and I just wanted to put in writing my thanks to him for introducing me to our wonderful, wonderful club, and Gentry Day seemed a most appropriate time to do it.

 

[WADSH]

My Dad, who introduced me to PNE many years ago. He was essentially a football fan, a Season Ticket holder at Everton (we lived in Runcorn, Cheshire) but when Everton were away he would go with his mates to watch games at Old Trafford, Maine Road, Turf Moor Burnden Park etc. just to see some good football - the North West in those days had some great teams. One year, on our way back home from our annual August holiday at Mrs Wilson's boarding house in Morecambe my dad took me and my brother on to Deepdale for our first visit. It was the first home game of the season, the ground was freshly painted, the grass was lush and green, and the "Three Tommies", Finney, Thompson and Docherty were playing. I fell in love with the place and the team, and it's been that way ever since even though I have no connection with the city. I saw a few games at Deepdale with my Dad, and we also went to Wembley in 1964 - it was just magic to go there again last year and finally put the nightmare of '64 to rest. I lived abroad in Africa for most of the 70's and 80's, tuning into the BBC World Service on Saturdays to get our result, and I am now a Season Ticket holder at Deepdale, residing in Yorkshire, but the 120 mile round trip to home games is well worth it. My Dad died in 1976, and I just wanted to put in writing my thanks to him for introducing me to our wonderful, wonderful club, and Gentry Day seemed a most appropriate time to do it.

RIP your dad. A very moving account which replicates my own experience in many respects. Oh for the days when the best players in the country came to Deepdale, both home and away!

 

[ernest]

Several years ago I wrote a tribute to my dad - a great North Ender who passed from this life over eight years ago now. He used to sit in the STFS about halfway up the first bank of seating roughly halfway between the centreline and the Kop End. That was where I used to sit with him on trips back to Preston - curiously about directly opposite where when I was a lad we used to stand in that bit of the old Kop that stretched around towards the Pavilion Paddock. He was always rather anxious about beating the crowd to get his bus back home and used to leave a few minutes before the end - I actually caught a glimpse of him doing so once as I watched a televised match, that 0-2 defeat against Sunderland in CB's reign, in a pub here in London.

In his last year or two he got progressively more frail. The last match I ever saw with him was the 1-0 victory over Birmingham at the end of the 06-07 season - back home that evening he actually had a seizure and so I, him and my mum found ourselves at the Royal Preston hospital that night where he was kept in for observation. He came back out and his last ever match was early the following season - that dreadful 3-0 defeat by Colchester, I believe it was, at the fag-end of the Simpson regime. He left at half-time because he simply had not got the strength to continue and I suspect he realised as he made his way by himself round the back of the Kop, while a lot of you were grumbling to each other in one of the bars in the ground, that he might never see a match again.

He would have made his way home to my mum who herself passed from this life some 20 months ago. I carried her ashes to join my dad's on the day of the match against Orient last season which is why I found myself back at Deepdale on a Friday night for the first time in a long time. So I thought I should now pay a tribute to her.

It is a bit odd in a way that I should because though she could remember her own dad and brother setting off to watch the North End back in the 1930s she wasn't really a fan - I don't think she ever set foot in the ground. Indeed I can remember that as I sat blinking back the tears after the end of the 64 Cup Final she was doing the ironing in another room and when she heard the commentator say that our opponents had not won the Cup before saying: "Well it's their turn to win it then."

But the point is that even when in her 80s she was acting as a nursemaid and carer for my dad and frankly without that support I doubt he could have got by on a day-to-day level never mind continue watching the North End to within a couple of months of his own demise. So it occurred to me that just as the performance of the team is not just down to the players and manager but also a lot of backroom staff so there are probably supporters who only get to matches because of support they get in turn from others - their backroom staff you might say. So let's not forget those invisible individuals - I am sure there must be a good few of them - even if they do say of our opponents in a lost Cup Final that it's their turn to win.

 

[Wisemen say]

My Dad, who introduced me to PNE many years ago. He was essentially a football fan, a Season Ticket holder at Everton (we lived in Runcorn, Cheshire) but when Everton were away he would go with his mates to watch games at Old Trafford, Maine Road, Turf Moor Burnden Park etc. just to see some good football - the North West in those days had some great teams. One year, on our way back home from our annual August holiday at Mrs Wilson's boarding house in Morecambe my dad took me and my brother on to Deepdale for our first visit. It was the first home game of the season, the ground was freshly painted, the grass was lush and green, and the "Three Tommies", Finney, Thompson and Docherty were playing. I fell in love with the place and the team, and it's been that way ever since even though I have no connection with the city. I saw a few games at Deepdale with my Dad, and we also went to Wembley in 1964 - it was just magic to go there again last year and finally put the nightmare of '64 to rest. I lived abroad in Africa for most of the 70's and 80's, tuning into the BBC World Service on Saturdays to get our result, and I am now a Season Ticket holder at Deepdale, residing in Yorkshire, but the 120 mile round trip to home games is well worth it. My Dad died in 1976, and I just wanted to put in writing my thanks to him for introducing me to our wonderful, wonderful club, and Gentry Day seemed a most appropriate time to do it.

Several years ago I wrote a tribute to my dad - a great North Ender who passed from this life over eight years ago now. He used to sit in the STFS about halfway up the first bank of seating roughly halfway between the centreline and the Kop End. That was where I used to sit with him on trips back to Preston - curiously about directly opposite where when I was a lad we used to stand in that bit of the old Kop that stretched around towards the Pavilion Paddock. He was always rather anxious about beating the crowd to get his bus back home and used to leave a few minutes before the end - I actually caught a glimpse of him doing so once as I watched a televised match, that 0-2 defeat against Sunderland in CB's reign, in a pub here in London.

In his last year or two he got progressively more frail. The last match I ever saw with him was the 1-0 victory over Birmingham at the end of the 06-07 season - back home that evening he actually had a seizure and so I, him and my mum found ourselves at the Royal Preston hospital that night where he was kept in for observation. He came back out and his last ever match was early the following season - that dreadful 3-0 defeat by Colchester, I believe it was, at the fag-end of the Simpson regime. He left at half-time because he simply had not got the strength to continue and I suspect he realised as he made his way by himself round the back of the Kop, while a lot of you were grumbling to each other in one of the bars in the ground, that he might never see a match again.

He would have made his way home to my mum who herself passed from this life some 20 months ago. I carried her ashes to join my dad's on the day of the match against Orient last season which is why I found myself back at Deepdale on a Friday night for the first time in a long time. So I thought I should now pay a tribute to her.

It is a bit odd in a way that I should because though she could remember her own dad and brother setting off to watch the North End back in the 1930s she wasn't really a fan - I don't think she ever set foot in the ground. Indeed I can remember that as I sat blinking back the tears after the end of the 64 Cup Final she was doing the ironing in another room and when she heard the commentator say that our opponents had not won the Cup before saying: "Well it's their turn to win it then."

But the point is that even when in her 80s she was acting as a nursemaid and carer for my dad and frankly without that support I doubt he could have got by on a day-to-day level never mind continue watching the North End to within a couple of months of his own demise. So it occurred to me that just as the performance of the team is not just down to the players and manager but also a lot of backroom staff so there are probably supporters who only get to matches because of support they get in turn from others - their backroom staff you might say. So let's not forget those invisible individuals - I am sure there must be a good few of them - even if they do say of our opponents in a lost Cup Final that it's their turn to win.

Two very moving and heart felt tributes Preston fans are simply "The Gentry."

 

[Preston1880]

My Dad, who introduced me to PNE many years ago. He was essentially a football fan, a Season Ticket holder at Everton (we lived in Runcorn, Cheshire) but when Everton were away he would go with his mates to watch games at Old Trafford, Maine Road, Turf Moor Burnden Park etc. just to see some good football - the North West in those days had some great teams. One year, on our way back home from our annual August holiday at Mrs Wilson's boarding house in Morecambe my dad took me and my brother on to Deepdale for our first visit. It was the first home game of the season, the ground was freshly painted, the grass was lush and green, and the "Three Tommies", Finney, Thompson and Docherty were playing. I fell in love with the place and the team, and it's been that way ever since even though I have no connection with the city. I saw a few games at Deepdale with my Dad, and we also went to Wembley in 1964 - it was just magic to go there again last year and finally put the nightmare of '64 to rest. I lived abroad in Africa for most of the 70's and 80's, tuning into the BBC World Service on Saturdays to get our result, and I am now a Season Ticket holder at Deepdale, residing in Yorkshire, but the 120 mile round trip to home games is well worth it. My Dad died in 1976, and I just wanted to put in writing my thanks to him for introducing me to our wonderful, wonderful club, and Gentry Day seemed a most appropriate time to do it.

Good post is that, mate. Nice one.

 

[FDC]

My Dad, who introduced me to PNE many years ago. He was essentially a football fan, a Season Ticket holder at Everton (we lived in Runcorn, Cheshire) but when Everton were away he would go with his mates to watch games at Old Trafford, Maine Road, Turf Moor Burnden Park etc. just to see some good football - the North West in those days had some great teams. One year, on our way back home from our annual August holiday at Mrs Wilson's boarding house in Morecambe my dad took me and my brother on to Deepdale for our first visit. It was the first home game of the season, the ground was freshly painted, the grass was lush and green, and the "Three Tommies", Finney, Thompson and Docherty were playing. I fell in love with the place and the team, and it's been that way ever since even though I have no connection with the city. I saw a few games at Deepdale with my Dad, and we also went to Wembley in 1964 - it was just magic to go there again last year and finally put the nightmare of '64 to rest. I lived abroad in Africa for most of the 70's and 80's, tuning into the BBC World Service on Saturdays to get our result, and I am now a Season Ticket holder at Deepdale, residing in Yorkshire, but the 120 mile round trip to home games is well worth it. My Dad died in 1976, and I just wanted to put in writing my thanks to him for introducing me to our wonderful, wonderful club, and Gentry Day seemed a most appropriate time to do it.

Some very interesting and also sad stories on here ,,thanks to all for sharing them with us and RIP to each and everyone