Having got to the Play-Offs last season, our expectations were to at least repeat that feat again this season when we kicked off against Bristol back in August. We had lost out Club captain, Paul McKenna, last summer, which was a disappointment - he had been a great servant to Preston North End. Maybe that had an effect on the whole squad, we'll never know. In the early part of the season we had the uncertainty about Sean St. Ledger. It was also a disappointment to lose Sean, although we have him back now, but this deal is the type we need to continue our sustained progress at this level.
As the season got into full swing, we had a very poor spell from October through to late December, picking up just one win and six points in ten games. After discussions with the board and the major shareholder, we felt it was time to change the manager. We are extremely well supported by our major shareholder and we are ever thankful for that and collectively we felt it was the right time to make a change. We were then very keen to bring in a young, enthusiastic manager who we hoped would give youth a chance at this football club, as over the last ten years that has not really happened and we appointed Darren.
Darren's original mandate was to ensure Championship safety and we have achieved that with some exciting and enjoyable football. We have added a few of our youngsters to the first team pool of players and already we can see that Danny Mayor has had a couple of full starts now and is a real plus. We all know it will be hard week in, week out for these lads to keep doing it in the new season, but lads of 19 should have 30 plus games under their belts. Andy Carroll only just turned 21 earlier this year and he has led the line for Newcastle all season and some of our lads were struggling even getting on the bench and that disappointed the board and myself. It was also a morale-sapping situation for the youth team coaches and the youth team players and families. Like many a supporter, I was quite puzzled to see some occasions where Preston only named five on the bench when promising youngsters could have been included. I should mention at this point the youth team's title-winning campaign. I would congratulate all the staff and players involved on a fantastic year.
Looking ahead, this year could be a very busy summer, because quite clearly we need to move some players out. Our wage bill has become far too high, which if you're at the top you can live with, but when you are finding yourself not safe with a few games left, isn't good enough. We do expect to have some players out and that will assist with new blood coming in as we want to try and make sure that we are back fighting to make our dream of being a Premier League club a reality. We know the difficulty of this task, but if we all work together, on and off the field we can achieve our dream.
Your support to achieve this is vital. We have completely revamped out ticketing policies for 2010/11. We felt that the 'Mad March' scheme had got a little bit stale and we have done a big overhaul of our matchday pricing, which we hope will help. We hope as many people as possible purchase a season ticket. We realise that a lot of our supporters are going to other Championship clubs and paying as much as £30 and yet people are coming to Deepdale in top class facilities and paying £20, so we have addressed that and hopefully it will prove popular amongst supporters.
Finally, I would like to thank our players, management and both football and administrative staff for all their efforts this season. Your support on the terraces has also been great this season. We want to encourage the band to continue their efforts. We will be finalising a location for them after discussions with Lancashire County Council, because we feel it gets everybody going and it can only be a plus. I look forward to seeing you all back at Deepdale next season for a push for the Premier League.
Derek Shaw
