Preston North End ready for the move to their new Euxton training ground

Some of the club’s admin staff moved there last week but tomorrow will be the first session on the Euxton pitches for Alex Neil’s squad.

The players got a guided tour of the new facilities last week, with PNE becoming the third club to own the facility after Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic.

North End bought it from Wigan’s administrators at the start of September for a bargain £1.6m.

It brings to an end a lengthy association for the first-team set-up at Springfields.

PNE have trained at the Lea venue since the mid 1990s and it has served them well.

In the next few weeks it will become home to PNE’s scholars who currently use UCLan’s Sports Arena – the younger age groups of the academy will remain at Cottam.

Over the years, North End have trained at several venues.

They had a pitch on Lowthorpe Road, where the Invincibles Pavilion car park is now situated.

For many years Willow Farm was where the North End players were put through their paces. For its time, that was a top-class facility with three pitches.

In the 1960s and 1970s, a common feature of training was for the players to change at Deepdale and jog up to Willow Farm, which was on Longsands Lane.

North End moved out of Willow Farm in 1982 after it was purchased for the ‘new town’ development of the area.

Where once the players honed their craft, it is now part of the extensive Longsands housing development.

After leaving Willow Farm, North End moved to train on a pitch at Red Scar.

If you are travelling on Longridge Road out of Preston in the direction of Grimsargh, the pitch was on the left opposite where the Red Scar Industrial estate now is.

When the plastic pitch was laid at Deepdale in 1986, that was used extensively to train on – Moor Park an alternative if a grass surface was needed.

Fulwood Barracks was another venue used, so too, strangely, a pitch on a farm in Goosnargh.

Springfields became home around the time of Gary Peters' time in charge, with David Moyes, Craig Brown, Billy Davies, Paul Simpson, Alan Irvine, Darren Ferguson, Phil Brown, Graham Westley, Simon Grayson and Neil all having trained their squads there.