"A bit of a sad thing really" - Preston North End, Deepdale potential improvement has one big limitation | OneFootball

The Lilywhites may have to hold out for higher attendances before making any further adaptations to their stadium.

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Preston North End's Deepdale is regarded as the world's oldest professional football stadium to have been used continuously.

The Lilywhites moved into the ground in 1880, however, its own history dates back five years earlier, opening in 1875 before hosting its first modern football game in October 1878.

While in recent times it has not seen too much success, in the late 1800s, it saw Preston become the two-time English champions, even going invincible in the 1888/89 campaign, the first ever season of the EFL.

The Lancashire-based club continue to be the tenants of the now 23,408 all-seated stadium, where it has been hugely developed in the last few decades. Nevertheless, as with all stadia, improvements could be made to take it to the next level in the coming years.

Fan Pundit pinpoints one key area to improve

Although there has been a level of consistency on the pitch in recent years, in the stands, Preston have found it tough to bring in a high number of spectators week-by-week.

North End currently have the sixth-lowest average attendance in the Championship at just 16,935 from their first four home matches of the season, despite having the 15th biggest stadium in the league, according to TransferMarkt.

With that in mind, Football League World asked their Preston Fan Pundit, Darren Watson, what improvement he would make to Deepdale, but there is one issue with any potential development made.

"I'll probably only say to actually finish off The Invincible Pavilion," he started. "Obviously, all the other stands in the stadium, like The Kop, The Tom Finney and The Alan Kelly Town End, have all got quite a large number of seated areas and large seating blocks.

"But we’ve wanted to get that stand upgraded for a while now. I know that's where all the boxes and the executive suites are, and all the pre-match experiences are aswell. But I feel like we could possibly look at upgrading that side of the ground.

"It'll upgrade the capacity of Deepdale, but if we do upgrade the capacity of Deepdale, are we going to get the fans to actually fill it as well or is it going to remain empty? So, we're doing the right thing by just leaving it as is at the moment, which really is a bit of a sad thing really, because we should really be getting a lot more people to home games than we currently are."

Darren continued: "But hopefully, with the style of football under Paul Heckingbottom, I do believe that we can go on and play good football, get to the top end of the Championship and start pushing for promotion.

"Paul Heckingbottom's got a good track record of promotions and getting teams to the Premier League and obviously having good cup runs as well, like we’ve seen with Sheffield United.

"We’ve just got to keep the faith, keep looking forward to the style of football Paul Heckingbottom is bringing in and who knows what could happen.

"If we do get into the Premier League, then we’ll bring in more fans as well."

Home form will be crucial to Preston's season

As with all teams battling against relegation, Preston must make Deepdale an absoloute fortress throughout this season, especially in the early months after they were rocked by the departure of Ryan Lowe just one game into the campaign.

Paul Heckingbottom has come in and started to settle the ship, but there is a long road ahead for the Lilywhites, and winning at home will be vital to ensuring their safety.

They are undefeated at Deepdale since the former Sheffield United manager took the job, with a 3-0 win over Watford in their last match on their own patch a huge statement to any potential relegation rivals.

More victories at home will only increase the number of fans who come to watch and support the team, potentially leading to the improvement to the Invincible Pavilion that Darren is so desperate to see.