Postcard from...Preston

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Derek Shaw knew that the writing was on the wall when he walked back to his car nine days ago, after Preston North End’s 3-0 home defeat by Colchester United, and found it covered in spit. The Preston chairman has a thick skin, but enough was enough and, 48 hours later, he announced that he would stand down. “This sort of thing doesn’t bother me,” Shaw said “But when you give so much time and effort for the job and seem to be everyone’s fall guy, the time has come for it to stop.”

Few Preston fans shed a tear. The Coca-Cola Championship club have come within touching distance of the top flight twice in the past three years, but the sale of players such as David Nugent and Claude Davis and the departure of Billy Davies, the manager, who transformed the club’s fortunes, have left Preston back at square one.

With the club languishing near the bottom of the second tier after a poor start to the season — no wins and one goal in four matches — supporters want answers. What has happened to the £6 million raised by selling Nugent to Portsmouth?

“It’s got to the stage where a lot of fans want the team to lose so we can get rid of the manager quickly,” Geoff Ollerton, the chairman of the Preston Supporters’ Group, said before 2-1 defeat away to Coventry City. “We will definitely go down if we don’t stop the rot.”

Paul Simpson, Davies’s replacement, guided Preston to the top of the league last year, but his team lost six of their last eight matches and missed the play-offs.

“We’ve made a slow start this time, but our performances haven’t been a million miles away from where we want to be,” Simpson said. “We got £6 million for Nugent, but no one gave me a cheque for that amount. We just need that first result.”

KAVEH SOLHEKOL