Jayden Stockley sees gloss taken off his stunning goal by Preston North End's defeat to Birmingham City

Stockley sent a superb shot into the top corner from fully 30 yards at Deepdale, the goal in the 24th minute bringing the Lilywhites level after they’d fallen behind early on.

It looked like it would earn them a point until Birmingham snatched a winner in the 85th minute.

Defeat was PNE’s fifth on the bounce at home in the Championship.

Stockley, making his first start since September, showed good technique to bring a clearance down on his chest, let the ball bounce and let fly with his right foot.

The 27-year-old said: “I’ve done a couple of those in training and missed by about 40 yards but I do back myself in those situations.

“This one fell too nicely not to hit and I was delighted to see it go in.

“I was just scared that the referee was going to blow for a foul because their guy fell down right next to me.

“It wasn’t a foul but I was praying the referee wasn’t going to put the whistle to his mouth.

“With the shot I didn’t even feel it hit my foot. It just flew, wobbled a bit and ended up in the top corner.

“It is one I will always remember but when you do score you hope it will be part of a win which unfortunately this wasn’t.

“In football you can get brought back down to earth quite quickly.

“It’s disappointing that the goal didn’t count towards anything in the end.”

PNE were more creative on Saturday than they had been in last Wednesday’s defeat to Millwall.

They had chances after Stockley had levelled, notably during a spell in the second half when they got on top.

However, they were on the back foot in the closing stages and effectively played the last 15 minutes with 10 minutes when Andrew Hughes hurt his hamstring – all three subs had been used by then.

Stockley said: “When it was 1-1 we had about half an hour when we were on top and had some chances.

“That was the chance to take the initiative, score and be clinical. We just couldn’t find the second goal.

“The positive is that we created good chances but the negative is that we didn’t take them and lost.

“Towards the end when we had people struggling after making our subs, maybe we had to settle in and made sure we walked away with a point.

“Sometimes you have to have that mind set, a point would have got off us this run of defeats at home which we are desperate to end.”

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