John Welsh Interview: Preston man finally back in the Championship

Ex-Liverpool midfielder John Welsh talks to Sky Sports about his long and difficult journey back to the Championship with Preston…

"I still remember it as if it was yesterday," John Welsh tells Sky Sports. "It was a good friend of mine, Neil Mellor. It was a 50-50 and unfortunately for me I ended up breaking my tibia and fibula. It put my career back a few years and took me a while to get back on track."

High and lows. There have been a few of them in Welsh’s career. From being part of Liverpool’s Champions League winning squad alongside Mellor in 2005, to being arrested – and subsequently cleared of involvement – in relation to spot-fixing charges last year.

We’ve got all the pictures on the wall of the game at Wembley. The lads were still telling new stories about it even coming back for pre-season. It’s something that you’ll never forget.

Now at Preston, he was a key component in the team that thrashed Swindon 4-0 at Wembley in May to earn promotion back to the Championship for the first time since 2011. For Welsh, it’s been an eight-year wait since that aforementioned injury.

He was playing for Hull against Preston that day in March 2007. It was more than 18 months before Welsh got back to League One, with Tranmere, let alone the second tier. "Obviously that was a real low point in my career," adds the now 31-year-old midfielder.

"They’re not great memories. It was a long road to get back to fitness. Once I’d got fit, I ended up going on loan to Chester in League Two. But I never really felt I’d slipped back from the player that I was.

"I like to think of myself as a mentally strong person so I always knew that once I got playing again I’d reach a good level again. Coming to Preston, it’s a big club and everything was set up to play in the Championship above. So I knew that at some point I’d get back here."

And what a way to do it. Preston looked to have blown their chance when they were beaten at Colchester on the final day with promotion in sight, but managed to turn it around by beating Chesterfield over two legs before seeing off Swindon in style at Wembley.

It was a remarkable turnaround and understandably there is still a buzz around Deepdale. "We’ve got all the pictures on the wall of the game at Wembley," says Welsh.

"It brings all the memories back from the game. The lads were still telling new stories about it even coming back for pre-season. It’s something that you’ll never forget. Looking around the place it gives you a real boost to be reminded of those memories.

"I know how everyone felt after the last day. We had to win to go up and we didn’t do it. It was hard to see how the rest of the season was going to play out. It showed real mental strength to be that low and come through in the end. That took real togetherness.

"In the first leg at Chesterfield when we held out under pressure, that gave us the belief again that we were a good team. We showed brilliant character and spirit. We knew we had that. There are a lot of friendships within the team and we’ve got a great bunch of lads here."

He needed those friendships after a difficult start to the season. A calf injury restricted his involvement last autumn and manager Simon Grayson passed the captaincy to Tom Clarke, but Welsh was patient. "I knew what the gaffer was like and he’d give everyone a chance."

He adds: "I just had to make sure that I put it in during training so that when I did get the chance I’d be in good shape and the right frame of mind to deliver. It was just a case of still being bubbly around the place. Once I put the shirt on I wasn’t going to let it go"

Welsh was rewarded with a new two-year deal in the summer – "I was really delighted, I knew I wanted to stay" – and following the departure of Kevin Davies, he’s now the senior man in the dressing room. "You’ve just got to use the experience as much as you can."

He’s worked with some big clubs and he knows the league. He knows what our strengths are and that’s what he wants us to stick to.

He’ll need all that experience in the Championship but Welsh feels that Grayson will also be "massive" for Preston. "He’s worked with some big clubs and he knows the league," he explains. "He knows what our strengths are and that’s what he wants us to stick to."

What are those strengths? "We’ve got a team that defends well and works hard for each other. So when you put that with strikers like Joe (Garner) and Jermaine (Beckford), we always feel that if we keep clean sheets one of those two will get a chance and score."

FL72 Live

It’s Middlesbrough first up on the opening weekend, with the game live on Sky Sports. Facing a side that was only a game away from the Premier League in May, it’s a reminder of the scale of the task ahead. Preston have the history, but not the budget.

"We know how well they did last year," says Welsh. "But we’re looking forward to it. Every week it’s going to be a strong team we’re up against. It’ll be tough. There are a lot of strong teams with big budgets. There are teams like Fulham spending millions on players.

"We’ve got to improve on last year, there’s no doubt about that. It’s a step up. We need to add that extra to our game and bring it every week, starting against Middlesbrough, and go from there. Obviously we want to be playing Championship football at the least next year.

"We’ll just take it step by step. We’ll keep the memories of that Wembley win but we won’t dwell on it." Welsh knows a thing or two about how to treat the two imposters of triumph and disaster. That should serve him well as – finally – he makes his Championship return.