The team that was to become known as The Invincibles came about during a period of great upheaval in English football. With large-scale improvements being made to their home ground, Deepdale, football became one of the main attractions in the small town of Preston. However, the man at the helm of the club, William Sudell, was still not satisfied. He formulated a plan to make Preston North End the greatest football team the country had yet seen. This plan entailed ‘importing’ players from distant areas, especially Scotland, rather than recruiting local players like other clubs. These imports would be rewarded by being paid a fee for each match they played, and being provided with well paid day jobs in the local area. This lead to Preston’s rivals accusing the team of professionalism in an era when all players were unpaid amateurs. When the team resultedly withdrew from the F.A. Cup, a threat from 36 northern teams to break away and form a rival league forced the F.A. to legalise professionalism in 1885, and thus The Football League professional competition was formed. One of the leagues founding members, Preston North End went the entire inaugural 1888 season without suffering a single defeat. This feat was not repeated for almost 115 years, until Arsenal achieved it in 2003. As if that wasn’t enough, they were the first team to secure the League and Cup ‘Double’ when they defeated Wolverhampton in the 1899 F.A. Cup final, going the entire F.A. Cup without conceding a single goal.  In addition, they beat Hyde 26-0 in the Cup, a record which remains to this day.  But then, the clubs fortunes went down hill. Nick Ross retired due to ill health in 1893 and died the year after, their captain Fred Dewhurst died the following year, and their manager was jailed for embezzling funds from his cotton mills to pay his players. After 1890, Preston’s rivals improved vastly, and as such, the team never again managed the replicate the achievements of The Invincibles. 

Achievements: Football League First Division: Champion x2, runners-up x1
                              FA Cup: Winners x1, runners up x1, semi finalists x1

Star player: John Goodall, DoB 19 June 1863, Westminster, England

 

Born in 1863, Goodall rose to fame playing for Preston North End during the development of the Football League. He played internationally for England, while his younger brother Archie, who also played for Preston and was born in Ireland, played for Ireland. John and Archie are therefore the first brothers in history to play for two different countries. John Goodall signed for Preston at the start of the 1885 season and netted 50 goals in 56 games for North End. He eventually left the club in 1889 and joined Derby County – his brother went along with him. There, he became a mentor to Steve Bloomer, the greatest goal scorer of the entire generation. As he aged, Goodall fell out of favour at Derby and moved on to New Brighton Tower who had a policy of buying old ex-international players to strengthen their status. However, the club folded with financial problems and Goodall played out his career in obscurity in Glossop, the smallest town in England with it’s own Football League club, at Glossop North End. After this, he gave cricket a go and played first-class for Derbyshire. He then returned to football as a player/manager with Watford up until 1910 when he transitioned to groundsman. Goodall's impact at Watford saw the club break numerous records, going through the 1902-03 Southern League Division 2 season undefeated thanks to Goodall, Bertie Banks and Harry Barton, who were respectively they highest season and single game goal scorers in the clubs history. Aged 44, Goodall became the oldest player to ever play for Watford when he participated in his last game against Bradford Park Avenue. Goodall then briefly moved to France where he played for RC Roubaix and retired in 1913 as a Mardy AFC player. After retiring, he greatly missed his former life as a football hero and lived a forlorn existence, attending to his vegetable allotment and domestic pet foxes. He could frequently be spotted walking one of his foxes around the town and he would sometimes take them for a walk onto the pitch at Deepdale.