David Moyes Returns to Deepdale: A Proving Ground for Aspiring Managers

David Moyes heads back to Deepdale on Wednesday night with Everton, and he is not shy about recommending his old club as the perfect proving ground for the next generation of managers.

The 63-year-old will be in the away dugout for the Carabao Cup second-round tie (20:00 BST), but the stadium still feels like a starting line for his coaching career. Preston North End is where Moyes first swapped boots for the manager’s jacket, and the memories clearly run deep.

‘Earn your stripes’

Moyes took his first managerial job at Preston in January 1998, stepping in to replace Gary Peters. It was a gamble then. He now calls it ideal.

"It was a brilliant job for me. I would be recommending it to all the young coaches," he said, reflecting on that leap into management. For Moyes, Deepdale was not just a workplace; it was a classroom.

His message to aspiring coaches is blunt. Don’t chase the bright lights too early. "You are better off to earning your stripes and finding a way through the leagues than being thrown in at a club where it is difficult at the start."

He learned to manage pressure, shape a team, and deal with the grind of the lower leagues. Those years underpinned everything that followed at Everton, Manchester United, West Ham, Real Sociedad and Sunderland. And he clearly believes others should follow a similar route.

Tea with a legend

Deepdale also gave Moyes something more intangible: a link to one of English football’s greats.

He still lights up when he talks about Sir Tom Finney, the Preston icon who scored 171 goals in 372 appearances for North End between 1946 and 1960.

"He used to come in and have a cup of tea with me on a Friday before a game in the early days," Moyes recalled. "He was legendary and he still is. He was the pillar of how I see Preston."

Those conversations were not just polite pleasantries. Moyes mined them for insight. The former defender wanted to know how one of the game’s finest dribblers thought.

"The biggest thing I used to ask him about was him being renowned for beating players and he would say: 'Well, they would over-cover one side and I would just take them on the other side'. "

Moyes never saw Finney live – "Obviously I didn't see him play, I was too young," he admitted – but the old footage he has watched, and those Friday chats over tea, left a mark. "I've seen a few clips and he was a big thing for Preston."

On Wednesday, Moyes returns as the experienced Premier League manager, leading Everton into a cup tie. But for him, Deepdale will always be the place where he learned the trade and listened to a legend explain how to beat a man with a drop of the shoulder and a change of direction.