Matt Scrafton column: Blackpool-Preston North End doesn't need any added hype

For the first time in eight years, Blackpool do battle with their fierce rivals Preston North End.

You can forget Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers or Burnley – and, with all due respect, games against Fleetwood Town were seen as nothing more than a fairly jovial pre-season friendly up until recently – this is the big one.

This is one that gets the juices flowing, this is the one that stirs the emotions.

Even now, 24 hours ahead of the game, there will be butterflies floating around the pit of your stomach.

This will be my first experience of the derby, so there’s an extra feeling of anticipation.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully aware of what it means. I’ve been here long enough and spoken to enough people to understand the significance of Saturday’s affair.

Like anything in life, you can’t truly appreciate something until you’ve experienced it yourself, so to coin a tired, overused football cliché – I’m champing at the bit to get going.

When I first took this job in 2016, there were three things on my bucket list. They were: report on the club’s first game post-Oyston, see Blackpool win at Wembley and watch them take on Preston.

I’ve been lucky enough to achieve two of those and, in the case of seeing Blackpool win at Wembley, I’ve even managed to do it twice. Now it’s time to tick off the final one on the list.

It’s just a bonus that it’s a Championship fixture again because, in all honesty, I don’t think many envisaged the Seasiders making it back to the second tier within five years when they suffered the second of back-to-back relegations to League Two in 2016.

That’s this club down to a tee though, isn’t it?

Plenty will be written and said about the match itself, and we’ll get onto that, but my main focus is the buzz around the ground – and the town at large – during the hours leading up to the game.

It’s about witnessing that chilling first roar from the North Stand, the barbs exchanged between the two sets of fans and the anticipation as both sides take to the field. That’s what I’m looking forward to.

Blackpool legend and Gazette columnist – and former PNE player, too, but we’ll conveniently forget that – Brett Ormerod had it right last week when he said derby games like this are why we love football so much.

Of course, there are plenty of other big games and other local rivalries.

Blackpool have had their fair share over the last 12 months or so when you think back to their play-off encounters but you can’t replicate this.

The fact that Blackpool and Preston haven’t faced each other in such a long time almost adds an extra element to the rivalry as well.

There’s no hiding from it, PNE have had the bragging rights over the last seven or eight years while Blackpool have faced their own battles during that time.

That’s all history now and, let’s not shy away from it, as a club, the Seasiders are on the up.

If Neil Critchley’s men can record the club’s first victory against Preston in 12 years, that will only be cemented.

Anyway, I promised I’d talk a little about the game eventually.

With the home advantage of a sell-out crowd, I firmly expect the Seasiders to come flying out of the blocks in the opening 10 to 15 minutes, fired up by Wednesday night’s miraculous comeback.

It’s what Pool tend to do anyway in the bigger games, use the electricity and energy from the terraces and transfer that to the pitch with a ferocious high press.

It’s a crying shame Chris Maxwell won’t be available to face his former club, the side he left in January 2020 to make the move to Bloomfield Road.

I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me saying there’s a bit of needle between himself and PNE nowadays, despite enjoying four years at Deepdale.

His time at the other end of the M55 didn’t end on particularly positive terms and I know personally how much he was looking forward to this game. It was all he could think about during pre-season.

When you factor in that Blackpool lad Tom Barkhuizen and former Seasider Brad Potts are now part of the Preston ranks, it’s those little nuggets and extra storylines that add to the whole narrative of the fixture.

It’s fair to say the timing of the derby isn’t exactly coming at the best time for Critchley’s men, who are depleted by injuries.

It isn’t just Maxwell – their number one keeper and captain – who is out, it’s also their top goalscorer Shayne Lavery, it’s Kevin Stewart, it’s Matty Virtue, it’s Grant Ward, it’s CJ Hamilton. The list goes on and on.

‘The form book goes out of the window for the derby’ is another phrase I detest, but I’ve no doubt whoever dons a tangerine jersey on Saturday will give it everything they’ve got.

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