AT half time North End's task was to climb the North face of the Eiger.

By the end of the second half of this match against Blackburn Rovers, their task a week on Tuesday for the second leg now takes on Everest proportions.

North End had an early chance when Parkinson played in a low ball which found Rankine in space on the edge of the box, but he snatched at the chance and put the ball over the top of the net.

Preston came again with Ashcroft getting to the goal line, delivering a cross which Cartwright got a touch to - but the ball went across the face of the goal.

Blackburn settled down - Sutton getting a bit of space and delivering a shot which Tepi saved at full stretch.

Then disaster struck for Preston as they failed to close down Dahlin and a spectacular overhead kick put the ball into Preston's net and the Ewood crowd exploded.

Three minutes later, it got worse for Preston as Kidd and Jackson failed to stop Dahlin and Sutton scored. The half time score was 2-0.

In the second half it all went disastrously wrong for Preston - Dahlin finished a classy piece of football with an equally classy second goal. And when Rovers brought on Kevin Gallacher, the Scot scored with his first touch from all of 20 yards.

To their credit, North End fans never stopped cheering up to this point, but they were suddenly silenced when Anderson struck in number 5.

Lars Bohinen added a sixth to make the second leg a case of damage limitation for PNE.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.