Ryan Lowe makes plea to Preston North End fans as Blackburn Rovers tickets fly

Preston North End will be backed by more than five thousand away fans in Friday night’s Lancashire derby at Ewood Park.

The Lilywhites head to Blackburn Rovers for the first derby match of the Championship season. North End’s followings on the road have been excellent all campaign, but the short trip to East Lancashire will see the biggest taken yet. Preston were allocated 4,328 tickets in the lower tier of the Brian Douglas Darwen End and sold those out on November 1st.

Blackburn then gave Preston a further 1,341 tickets in the upper tier - of which fewer than 500 were left as of Tuesday morning (November 7). Fans, as per PNE’s club website, will be unable to swap between tiers. The game is being broadcast on Sky Sports and - after returning to winning ways last time out against Coventry - Preston boss Ryan Lowe wants as many tickets as possible snapped up.

“Another derby, I believe we’ve sold a lot of tickets and the bottom tier is all gone,” said Lowe. “Well, come on PNE fans let’s get the top tier done as well. They were excellent (against Coventry). When they get singing like that and rally the lads through - I read Pottsy’s programme notes, saing how important they are. And they are massively important, so long may that continue.”

PNE head into the match sitting sixth in the table, while Jon Dahl Tomasson’s men are 10th - three points worse off. Both sides were victorious last time out though, with North End defeating the Sky Blues 3-2 at home while Rovers were 3-1 winners at Norwich City. Last season, Preston stormed to a 4-1 victory at Ewood Park and the Lancashire rivals played out a 1-1 draw at Deepdale - a 94th minute Dominic Hyam own goal seeing North End nick a point.