Preston North End face a Herculean task at Deepdale today, but tackling Aston Villa is nothing compared to what’s coming next season.
After a decade of stolid and widely-admired subsistence, the Lilywhites’ grip on the Championship will be tested to its limits.
The teams who ultimately make the jump from League One will be no mugs.
Birmingham City are a behemoth, with ambitions that stretch far beyond the Championship and the finances to make them a reality.
Competition
Wrexham, upwardly mobile and sprinkled in stardust, are only marginally lower on the food chain.
Wycombe Wanderers – for so long the plucky poor relation – have their new Kazakh billionaire Mikheil Lomtadze.
Stockport County are backed by Mark Stott, a businessman of ill-defined but seemingly inexhaustible wealth.
Would any of them even view Preston as competition?
During the halcyon days under Billy Davies, the Lilywhites were a genuine Championship force.
The flood of parachute money from the Premier League had not poisoned the well, and sizable gates guaranteed competitiveness.
Yet they returned to the second tier a decade ago as second-class citizens and stayed that way.
No risks
Under the stewardship of the Hemmings family, whose patriarch Trevor died in 2021, Preston have fastidiously ignored the twin temptations of recklessness and vaulting ambition.
When other teams pushed the boat out, the SS Deepdale remained steadfastly tethered to the shore.
No debts, no risks and no drama.
To which their frustrated supporters might add ‘no chance’, and they’d be right.
Preston’s average finish over the last nine seasons is 11th, with a high of seventh in 2018 and a low of 14th the following year, both under Alex Neil.
They are to the Championship what Luxembourg is to Europe – it’s there, and that’s about all anyone can say.
Inevitably, this stasis brings accusations of complacency and a lack of ambition.
Critical
Earlier in the season, supporters sent an open letter to chairman Craig Hemmings urging wide-ranging reforms to everything from the club’s recruitment strategy to its media relations.
Yet the Hemmings are required to pour around £15m into a black hole every season, just to maintain a bottom-four budget.
It’s hard to be too critical.
Irrespective of your viewpoint, however, Preston’s approach is doomed to fail eventually, just like any club whose survival is dependent on consistently beating the odds.
It only needs one bad transfer window, one misjudged managerial appointment or one unusually powerful clutch of promoted teams.
Demise
Behold the demise of Shrewsbury Town, whose lengthy residence in League One is about to come to an end.
For years, they have managed to do just enough.o be marginally better than financial basket cases like Morecambe or fellow minnows like Accrington Stanley.
Now they, too, find themselves swamped by the tide of wealth and ambition surging from below.
Preston cannot say they haven’t been warned.
The sad reality for anyone at Deepdale is that a Championship club in 2025 cannot be sustainably run and successful at the same time.
Their presence in today’s FA Cup quarter-finals provides a hard-earned moment in the spotlight, not just for owners who clearly have the club’s best interests at heart but supporters whose hopes and dreams annually shatter against the rocks of fiscal responsibility.
If they could reach Wembley, it would be a story for the ages.
Yet the feeling lingers that Preston’s day in the sun will be followed by a long, dark winter.
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