The John Smith column: King Hecky and his merry band of men enjoy War of the Roses victory
"In Dickies meadow" is a Lancashire saying thought to have originated from the death of the Yorkshire born King "Richard The Third" who was the last English monarch to be killed in battle in the decisive battle of the War of the Roses in 1485.
The victory for the Lancashire backed Henry Tudor in the meadows of Bosworth lead to the rivalry between the two counties which still lingers on centuries later to this present day albeit on a slightly more friendly basis.
On Friday night, in our "Roses" clash at Deepdale, we were also in "in Dickies meadow" at one point having got into a troublesome situation by conceding two quick-fire goals after we had made a fairly bright start in the games opening 10 minutes.
At 2-0 up our visitors from across the Pennines were in fine voice convinced they had already won the game and began taunting their ex-player Daniel Jebbison with chants of "Jebbo,Jebbo, what's the score?".
They also goaded our stunned fans with the wrestling chant of "easy" and the more predictable "football in a library" one.
It looked like we could be in for a grim night as the rain poured down under the Deepdale lights.
However this season it is a different North End side full of fight, determination and spirit epitomised by man-of-the-match Harrison Armstrong which could not be more illustrated by this thrilling comeback in turning the two-goal deficit into a magnificent 3-2 win.
The famous Jimmy Greaves saying that football is a funny old game could certainly be applied to this one with a corker of a goal from Lewis Dobbin in first half injury-time coupled with an own goal in the opening minute of the second which in a short space of time completely turned the game on its head.
The library was no more with a vibrant Deepdale coming alive in one of the best atmospheres I have seen here for a while.
The volume went up several decimals when Jebbison leapt like a salmon to head in our winning goal .The chant of "Jebbo, Jebbo, what's the score?" began to do the rounds again but ironically this time it was coming from the voices of our jubilant fans.
I myself felt that him scoring the winner was a case of karma coming back to bite the visitors’ fans who had constantly jeered and booed him throughout the whole game .
While I cannot see our manager Paul Heckingbottom's managerial reign here having the same longevity as the 24 years Henry Tudor sat on the throne after his victory at Bosworth, but following this win which saw us temporarily climb back into a play-off position he was certainly seen as the "King of Deepdale" in the eyes of the delighted home fans.
They applauded him and his team off the pitch at the end of the game while bouncing along to their "Hecky and Stuart McCall" version of the well-known Status Quo song.