The mighty Preston North End are based oddly enough in Preston, so called in reference to 'Priest's Town' as it was originally founded by St. Wilfrid for his priests. Preston is famouse for being the first town outside of London to be lit by coal gas; the birth place of the word teatotal; The Preston By-pass was Britain's first motorway; In 1965 Ray Allen opened the UK's first Kentucky Fried Chicken store on Fishergate High Street; and Preston has the longest continuous row of old style red public phone boxes. All verifiable facts.

The club started life as a cricket club and then decided they wanted to do something in the winter other than watch the Big Bash. So they started a rugby union team in 1877, only to discover catching an oval shaped ball at silly mid wicket just didn't catch on. The following year, they decided to try their hand at the beautiful game and have been playing it ever since. Preston supporters claim that their statidum Deepdale is the oldest continuously used football league ground, despite Brammall Lane being the older ground.

As with every club Leeds play at the moment, Preston North End was a founder member of the Football League in 1888, and in their first season won a historic Leage and FA Cup double without conceding a goal and thereafter became known as "The Invincibles". They won the title the next year, and since then have been the opposite of invincible with just the one FA Cup trophy success in 1938. Following their second title success, Adolf Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and the rest is history.

As one of the first clubs to sign Scottish players in significant numbers, Preston adopted the moniker of Scottish Professionals in respect of their superior skills and tactical understanding. In the 1888 season, their Scottish contingent included radio and tv presenter Nick Ross; his brother, Little Demon Jimmy Ross; and gnarled Centre Back, David Russell who once chased an opponent down the pitch and kicked him in the back.

In 1913, suffragettes tried to burn down Deepdale but were foiled in the act and in a pique of poetic irony, set fire to Arsenal's Manor Ground at Woolwich instead. The Woolwich Gazette reported that the whole North Grandstand was gutted by fire which started at the refreshment bar, at the junction with the western end of the stand. It was apparently witnessed by more people than had seen the team play for much of the previous season!

Preston's mascot is the Deepdale Duck, played by Simon Nash for 27 years. The Deepdale Duck once got into a real live fight with City Gent, Bradford City's mascot at a match. On seeing the Gent at the 1999 Mascot Grand National in Huntingdon, he took a dive in an attempt to get the Gent sent off. The Duck himself had previous form for being sent off for mauling the opposition goalkeeper. The referee accused him of being a disruptive duck. The Duck did later redeem himself by assisting in a marriage proposal when he pulled out a sign asking a fan's partner to marry him. and thereby became a Duckess. Some fans love the Duck but I think he's quackers.

Preston's most famous players were Tom Finney, 'the Preston Plummer' who scored 210 goals for the club whilst sill managing to enlist with the Royal Armored Corps in 1942; Irish goalkeeper, Alan Kelly Senior who played over 400 games for the club; tenacious midfielder Bill Shankley who was part of the 1938 Preston FA Cup winning team; and Leeds United loanee Sam Greenwood. The Leeds links don't just end with Greenwood, but Simon Grayson and Paul By Heckinbottom have both managed at PNE.

Famous people to have come from Preston include

• Nick Park

• Peter Purves

• Andrew Flintoff

• Jessica Taylor

• John Inman

• Tim Farron

• Nazia Mogra

• A.J. Hartley

• Sir Richard Arkwright

• Roy Barraclough

• Edith Rigby, suffragette and first woman in Preston to ride a bicycle

• The Preston Plummer

• Various Sanitary Engineers

• Flight Lieutenant John Gillespie, World War2 flying ace from Preston, born 1916

This being an away match makes the result unpredictable, but Leeds are 2nd and Preston are 14th. Preston's form is L D D D D so they're not likely to win, whereas we are WWLWW. Farke will no doubt ring the changes from Tuesday's team, so Piroe, Solomon back in the starting XI. I expect a 2-1 win to us with James and Piroe scoring, and Greenwood getting one for the Invincibles.