This week, MICK BAINES lives a Deepdale dream

MICK Baines is hoping for "divine intervention" tomorrow when his football team Preston North End plays Nottingham Forest at Deepdale.

To reach the play-offs Preston must win, Burnley need to lose to Coventry and Norwich must lose at home to Stockport, who are already relegated.

Mick, 42, who underwent a life-saving bone marrow transplant last year, was born in Preston and names the city's Deepdale soccer stadium as his favourite place in the county.

A fan since his boyhood, he now holds a disabled season ticket in the Tom Finney stand.

"I wasn't fortunate enough to see Finney play. When I first went they were a struggling Third Division side going nowhere. I have seen a hell of a lot of thin and, just recently, a bit of thick," he said.

"I used to watch them home and away, now I just watch them at home. It gets me out in the fresh air -- provided it's not chucking it down!"

Mick, of Bolton Road, Abbey Village, was diagnosed with leukaemia in 1997 and underwent chemotherapy. He knew his only chance of survival was to find matching bone marrow and late in 2000 the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust located a 26-year-old woman in Chicago who had agreed to become a donor.

Now on the mend, he works three half-days a week in the home and leisure section in Asda in Blackburn.

And he lives in hope that next season -- divine intervention permitting -- Deepdale will play host to Premiership teams so he can cheer his team on in the top flight.