When Championship club Preston North End return to Campoamor in the summer, lifetime Lilywhites fan Harry Billington will be amongst hundreds of supporters heading for Spain.
“I’ve not missed a PNE game, home or away in 40 years,” Harry, 88, told me.
Harry, who worked at BAe in Preston, Lancashire, has fond memories of late North End legend, Sir Tom Finney.
“I started watching PNE the first season after World War 2,” said Harry.
“I saw the great Sir Tom Finney in his first – and last – game for Preston,” he said.
Finney, who played during 1946-60, died in 2014, aged 91, having been capped by England 76 times, scoring 30 goals.
Preston’s first team squad will once again be spending a week in Spain in July as part of their pre-season preparations, under gaffer Ryan Lowe.
North End will be returning to last season’s base at Campoamor for a six-day training camp in the Alicante province.
Preston will be based at Campoamor during July 2-8: “The club are looking to arrange a friendly fixture, to be played at a local stadium, to make up part of the camp and this will be communicated if a match can be confirmed,” said statement on the club’s website.
Tom Finney with the RAC Egypt
Aged 20, Finney was called up in April 1942 and assigned as a trooper to the Royal Armoured Corps.
He was sent to Egypt and served with Montgomery’s Eighth Army. When on leave in North Africa, he was able to play for army football teams against local opposition.
Many years later, he met the Egyptian film actor Omar Sharif, who told him that as a teenager he had been a substitute for one of the teams Finney played against, but he did not take part in the match.
In April 1945, Finney took part in the final offensive at the Battle of the Argenta Gap as a Stuart tank driver with the 9th Lancers.
Finney retired in 1960 following a game against Luton Town. He had played his entire career for his local club, making 433 League appearances and scoring 187 goals.
Finney continued playing football after he left Preston, appearing in charity and benefit matches. In 1962, he played in the Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League with Toronto City, appearing in one match.
In 1963, he played for Northern Irish club Distillery against Benfica in the European Cup.
Finney was highly regarded by former Preston teammate and Liverpool legend Bill Shankly, who described him as ‘the greatest player I ever saw, bar none’.
Shankly also said Finney was ‘a ghost of a player but very strong. He could have played all day in his overcoat’.
Late, England and Blackpool star Stanley Matthews once ranked him alongside Pelé, Diego Maradona, George Best and Alfredo Di Stéfano as one of the few players who could ‘dictate the pace and course of a game on a regular basis’.
Harry added: “Sir Tom was the greatest player I’ve ever seen. When he got the ball, the crowd went quiet. Wondering what he was going to do.”
