Is there anything worse for a football club than standing still?
The logical answer to that question is: yes, of course there is. Football is littered with clubs that have not managed what they had well and collapsed as a result. For some reason, the example I never hear is Rushden and Diamonds. They don’t exist anymore technically, but they were fun to play as on Championship Manager for a few years.
The more famous example is Leeds United, who went from the Champions League semi-final to League One in just a few years. Peter Ridsdale, now at Preston North End, was widely held responsible for that freefall.
At Preston North End though, he has overseen no freefall. His legacy at Deepdale will be one of either stability or stagnation depending on who you ask – and the same can be said of the Hemmings family. That probably undersells the level of friction there has been with fans at times, but in a week where there have been warnings about fewer and fewer people willing to subsidise Championship football (to the total tune of billions over the last ten years), balance is needed. Even if, for many, standing still is going backwards.
All of which brings us to the presence of Amr Zedan at Deepdale for Monday’s draw against QPR to watch a club that has been standing still for the best part of a decade.
It is normal that this brings about a level of feverish excitement. There’s little else to be excited about after a fantastic first half of the season dissolved into another disappointing second half. Technically, Preston North End are unbeaten in three and have stopped the rot to some extent after that appalling run from January into March – and that does deserve some credit – but it hardly gets the pulse moving.
You’ll not find anyone associated with the club who doesn’t concede that the time is right for new owners. Even the owners themselves, who get vanishingly little credit for sticking eight figures a year into the club knowing they won’t get a return, know it is time to go.
Zedan pictured shaking hands with Peter Ridsdale after full-time is proof of little, but it is the most sure-fire sign that something new is coming at Deepdale that we have seen so far.
We know not a great deal about Amr Zedan, other than cautiously assuming he is not another Chris Kirchner. We can be reassured to some extent that he was an interested party in buying Chelsea a few years ago. That suggests a level of backing that means he can be ambitious.
We know his net worth is significant, we know he is the chairman of a family business known as the Zedan Group. We know he was born in the US and is married to Jordanian royalty. And we know that a significant portion of the PNE fanbase is champing at the bit for him to take the reins at Deepdale.
Zedan’s hands would doubtless be tied by the same profitability and sustainability rules as others – though as Wrexham (an admittedly unique case backed by big sponsorship deals), there are ways around it.
And you get the impression even something as small as making the paddock of a pitch resemble that of a Championship football club would be a major step in terms of getting fans on side.
But as much as the existing owners are trying to be diligent in making sure any new owner is here for the long haul, in a way that protects the future of the club, new owners are not sure victory. The Premier League may beckon, but so might some lower leagues. It would be, if it happens, an uncertain future.
But sometimes that uncertainty is preferable to what you have and that’s where a big chunk of the fanbase is at the moment.
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