On This Day – 13th January
David Moyes started his managerial career on this day back in 1998, when he stepped up from Assistant Manager to take charge of Preston North End’s first team.
The Scot had previously been second in command to Gary Peters, but when Peters was shown the door, Moyes was seen as the perfect replacement at Deepdale.
Moyes ended his playing career at Preston and took up a coaching role before taking over the Assistant Manager job. He changed the fortunes of the club when he was in charge, guiding the club to the Second Division play-offs in his first full season in charge.
Under Moyes’ leadership, the Lancashire club won the Second Division title in the 1999/00 season and the following season he took them to the First Division Play-Off Final, but Bolton Wanderers beat them convincingly by three goals to nil.
His managerial record did not go unnoticed and Everton came in and offered him the opportunity to manage a Premier League club for the first time. He joined the Merseyside club two months before the end of the 2001/02 season.
In the eleven seasons that Moyes would go on and spend at Everton, they would only finish in the bottom half of the table twice. The club ended the 2004/05 season in fourth place, the highest league position since 1988 and they qualified for the Champions League.
Moyes’ men narrowly missed out on the group stages of the Champions League after Spanish club Villarreal beat The Toffees in the final qualifying stage.
When Sir Alex Ferguson finally decided to retire from Manchester United, he told the board to go for Moyes as his replacement. He joined in the summer of 2013, but only stayed at Old Trafford for ten months before being shown the door.
A year-long spell at Spanish club Real Sociedad followed, before he returned to England and took charge of Sunderland. He finally joined West Ham United after a spell as their interim manager and won Europa Conference League in 2023.
All of this would have seemed impossible on 13th January 1998 when 1,618 hardy souls braved the cold weather at Macclesfield Town to watch Preston beat them 1-0 in the Auto Windscreens Shield!
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