About the Site

Webmaster & site designer: Gary Bond a.k.a 'Shabbagaz' on messageboards
Website designed using: Adobe Photoshop & Dreamweaver CS6
Online since: 2002

The idea for a new site came about in September 2002. Before this time there were plenty of unofficial Preston North End websites but during this period a rapid decline had begun. The plenty of websites soon became very little as one after one saw little updates and eventually closed. I did have one website of my own although to be frank it was crap! This showed a glaring gap in the unofficial PNE website community and it needed to be filled, so I announced my idea on the PNEFans.com messageboard (another unofficial website which declined fast and closed) I received positive replies and 3/4 people were willing to help.

In October 2002 Lilywhite Magic was born. The site had a pretty basic design at first and only comprised of a few sections. Some sections were only temporary while I built up ideas for 'something different' - over time this has become the main focus of the site offering something different and not just the usual news, fixtures etc you find on other sites.

The site really struggled for traffic/site visitors at first, just showing the sad decline of the unofficial PNE online community. The site then became the focus of my web design project at college. A new design was incorporated along with some new features. I reckon I could've got a higher grade than 'C' though - my tutor was sacked and replaced by the most clueless 'teacher' I've ever experienced - we had to teach her!

The site continued its sluggish growth throughout 2003 but during this year the unofficial PNE online community showed positive signs of recovery. Once-Invincible.co.uk was established and in October 2003 saw the emergence of pne-online.net
Links were established with both sites and I became a moderator of the latter.

Unfortunately it took longer for the unofficial community to really 'boom'. The official messageboard closed in 2004 and this caused the surge in new registrations on pne-online.net
From here it really took off - pne-online.net expanded and with lots of new members on there they also took notice of the 'wider community'.

Since the site first opened it has seen continued changes - various redesigns and revamps along with the additions of new sections. It has also brought along great opportunites such as writing columns for Football First's Fanszone section (paper now defunct). I also wrote the PNE season review for the online Watford fanzine 'Blind, Stupid & Desperate' for season 2005/06.

The site is now amazingly in its 13th year and over the past few years it has moved to a new server and a new domain name. The site received a quite a substantial revamp in 2012 with all the pages essentially being 'rebuilt'.
In May 2015, the design was once again refreshed in readiness for some much needed updates.

Here's to the next 13 years!

 

If you have any questions about the site then please contact me using the feedback page.