Win at Ewood will be remembered for long time to come, says Preston fan John Smith

It was the kind of early Christmas present that most of our fans could only have dreamed of beforehand and this game will be long remembered by those who braved the wintry conditions in making the short journey to watch this comprehensive thrashing.

The winning margin matched our 4-1 win here during the days of Tom Finney in 1959 but most of our fans at Ewood on Saturday including myself would not have even have been born then.

Prior to this our biggest ever win at this venue had been a 4-0 win during the days of Queen Victoria's reign in 1896.

Unlike the monarch’s famous quote "we were most definitely amused" watching this game particularly when Ben Whiteman rattled in our fourth goal which virtually ended the game as a contest as early as the 65th minute.

This goal was also the cue for many of our East Lancashire "friends" to head for the exit door and seeing this made me feel the complete opposite to how I had felt in my last visit here a year ago when we had suffered a dismal defeat after a poor performance in the last match of Frankie McEvoy's brief spell in charge.

We began tentatively against a Rovers side who had won their last six home league games on the spin but once Ben Woodburn put us ahead it was like someone had pulled the lions tail to make our yellow machine roar into action and our dominance could of resulted with us going into the interval with an even healthier advantage.

The home side always looked vulnerable when playing the ball out from the back and we doubled our advantage shortly after the restart when our pressing tactics paid a rich dividend although it really was a present which came gift wrapped from the Rovers defence.

Although Rovers pulled a goal back our two goal advantage was soon restored with a typical old fashioned centre forwards header by my man-of-the-match Ched Evans a goal which illustrates the benefits of playing with an effective target man.

Watching the remainder of the game as the flurries of snow came down was like I had given myself a shake and was viewing "Lowe Wonderland" through a musical snow globe playing jingle bells with it certainly being fun seeing Preston win away!!!