Today, Simon Grayson celebrates three years as manager of Preston North End. During that time he has guided the club into the Championship via the League One play-offs. He is also the 14th longest-serving manager in the English top four leagues.
The former Leeds United boss took over at Deepdale with the club situated in 17th place in League One. In his first full season he guided them to as play-off place, only for them to lose at the semi-final stage. A year later, an emphatic victory over Swindon Town saw them return to the second-tier.
Speaking to the Lancashire Evening Post, Grayson admits of his pride at the progress the club has made since his appointment on February 18th 2013. After leaving Huddersfield, he said that he was on holiday at the time when he received the call to discuss the Lilywhites vacancy,
“These last three years have gone really quickly, it only seems like two minutes since I got the call about coming here.
“I was in Dubai at the time, having a holiday after being sacked by Huddersfield. Even though I had only been out of work for a fortnight, I was getting restless and wanted to be working again.
“I came back from Dubai on the Sunday and joined the club on the Monday. There are a group of lads still here from that first morning I came in to meet everyone.”
Looking ahead to the future, Grayson believes that should they still be a Championship club in four years time, then he would have done his job. He accepts that he wants to be ambitious as possible, but concedes gaining promotion into the Premier League will take time,
“Everyone wants to get to the Premier League – that is where the headlines are, where the money is, where the publicity is.
“But you can’t run before you can walk, you have got to put building blocks in place in the Championship. The second season in the Championship is often seen as the hardest one because other clubs know about you and what your players have done in the first season up.
“We have got ambitions to be a Premier League club, we will strive for that but first the foundations have to be put in place. If we are still in the Championship in the next four or five years, we are making progress still from where we came from.
“Only three clubs can go up each year, so how you do it and achieve it can be done in varying ways.”
Grayson hopes to celebrate the start of his fourth year in charge with a home victory over play-off chasing Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday.
