Ahead of this weekend’s final programme of the season we have been speaking to former players of both clubs.
The One And Only matchday programme this Saturday features an interview with recent Rover and North End man Mark Rankine, now a football agent working with some of the country’s top talent.
However, we don’t just have one ‘interested party’, we have crammed a second in, speaking to a man who signed for the Club in the 1950’s and played alongside Sir Tom Finney, who then ended up at Tranmere, via that club up the Fylde coast.
And Les Campbell was such an interesting person to speak to and we had so much content from the ‘tricky winger’, as he was known by Sir Bobby Charlton, we have got a short piece below to give you a flavour of the interesting career he had!
After his spell at Tranmere and a return to home town club Wigan, where he originally signed for PNE from, Campbell, now 77, ended up at Altrincham and but for some unlikely help he would have had his already foreshortened career – by a spell in the RAF – cut even longer, as he explains.
“I went to Altrincham and we had a friendly against Manchester City and Sir Matt Busby was watching the game,” he told the programme this week. “I broke my leg and Matt sent word down ‘send Les to Old Trafford tomorrow and we’ll sort out the leg’ and all of a sudden George Best and me were having treatment together!
“The first game I played after I had it repaired was against Wigan and I broke it again in a Cup tie and Sir Matt said ‘send Les down and we’ll do it again’ and they repaired it again at Old Trafford free of charge.”
More of Les’ revealing interview will be available in Saturday’s matchday programme, on sale from Friday afternoon at the Club’s ticket and retail store, online at www.mypne.com and on matchday in and around the Deepdale Stadium from 1pm onwards.