Stat Attack: Notts County vs. Preston North End

Notts County and Preston North End are two of the oldest football clubs in the country (and by extension, the world), whose history goes back over 125 years. The first fixture between the two took place in November 1888, when North End defeated the Magpies 7-0 in the first ever season of the Football League.

The 1888-89 season saw Preston remain unbeaten throughout, and would go on to become English football's first "Invincibles".

This feat which remained unbroken until 2003-04 when Arsenal also went a whole top-flight season without losing - so really, Notts being thumped so heartily wasn't quite as bad a result as it seems!

Aside from Preston going the whole season unbeaten, they were also the first EVER winners of the Football League. Oh, and they won the FA Cup that year too!

The two clubs have met a total of 89 times, and sadly (for us Notts fans) the Lilywhites have the upper hand by quite a significant margin. They're won 42 times, while the Magpies have won 23 games. 24 draws have taken place.

The two teams that have played the most games overall in the Football League are, in fact, Notts County and Preston North End!

Meanwhile, Preston are ranked as the fourth most-successful English football club of all time domestically.

Over the years, there have been some varied scorelines. We've talked about the 7-0 back in 1888, but we've also had 6-2, 6-1, 6-0, 4-3 and 4-2.

Recently, meetings have been tamer (from a goal-scoring perspective). Since the turn of the millennium, only ten goals have been scored in the ten games we’ve played.

We've played them twice this season, first in the league, a 1-1 draw away in August, and then a 1-0 defeat at Meadow Lane in the JPT.

The National Football Museum was originally situated in Deepdale, Preston, but was moved to Manchester in 2012.

Deepdale was used as the venue for the England U21s when they played Iceland in March 2011. Deepdale was used again at the end of the 2011-2012 season to host three U19s Elite Round matches with England, Slovenia and Switzerland all taking to the famous pitch. The three games were held at the end of May over six days.

Preston have made the play-offs in a record eight seasons, spanning all three league divisions, but have not yet been promoted via this route.

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Paddy McCourt is an injury concern for Notts as he hobbled off after 33 minutes of the 2-0 defeat at Crawley on Saturday.

Midfielder Liam Noble trained on Sunday and he could come back into the Magpies' squad after missing the last three games, while winger Jamal Campbell-Ryce will miss the remaining three matches with a knee injury.

For Preston, Scott Laird, Jermaine Beckford and Paul Huntington all overcame problems to start at Port Vale last Friday as North End stretched their unbeaten run to 16 League One games, but three successive draws have seen MK Dons breathing down their necks in the bid for automatic promotion.