As it happened: Blackpool 2-0 Preston North End

After an absence of eight years from the football calendar, Preston North End and Blackpool are ready to renew hostilities.

Plenty of water has flowed under the bridge since the last meeting. Was it really as long ago as August 2013 when Tom Clarke put the ball in the Blackpool net?

That was the League Cup, with you having to go back to November 2009 for PNE’s last visit to Bloomfield Road and to February 2010 for the last Championship meeting at Deepdale.

It’s absence that makes the heart go fonder, or in the case of these two clubs, increases the sense of rivalry.

North End and the Seasiders dare I say it, have almost missed one another while bobbing around in different divisions.

Now they are back on equal footing and I’ve no doubt that October 23 was a date ringed in red on many calendars when the fixture list was published in June.

From my watching of PNE down the years, this is the derby which has the biggest edge to it.

Read Dave Seddon’s full Press View here.

There will be 11 players with the chance to make themselves heroes this afternoon, two more minutes...

PNE Starting XI: Iversen, Storey, Bauer, Hughes, van den Berg, Whiteman, Browne, Johnson, Earl, Riis, Sinclair.

PNE Subs: Rudd, Cunningham, Lindsay, Potts, Ledson, Barkhuizen, Maguire.

To a chorus of boos and applause, both sets of players are out onto the pitch!

Both sets of fans are filling Bloomfield Road, the atmosphere is building...

It’s a moment many PNE fans have been wwaiting for, the derby with Blackpool - and it’s only 15 minutes away.