Preston North End have come up with a fairly novel way of dealing with the fallout caused by the Jermaine Beckford and Eoin Doyle fight that broke out during their side's 2-1 defeat against Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday.
It was a fairly bizarre ten minutes in Eoin Doyle's career on Saturday. Doyle and his team-mate Jermaine Beckford were both sent off for fighting with each other in the final moments of Preston North End's clash with Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday, just a few minutes after Doyle had come on as a substitute for Preston and scored.
The reaction to the incident was one of general disgust among Preston fans, with consensus generally being that Doyle and Beckford should be reprimanded heavily. Some even said that they should be booted out of the club.
And now Preston have come to a decision which is frankly a great deal for the spectators who attended the game. The club, according to a statement on their website, are going to use the fines imposed on Beckford and Doyle to refund to fans who travelled to the game:
On top of the punishment they will receive from the FA for their sendings off, they have also been fined by the club for their actions.
These fines will be used to repay all Preston North End supporters who attended the trip to Hillsborough the cost of their ticket money back.
OK, so the supporters might have been embarrassed by what the players got up to, but let's be honest, everyone loves a bit of argy-bargy, even when it's two of your own players. One might even say that it shows Beckford and Doyle care about winning.
The two players have also released a joint statement on the matter:
We apologise wholeheartedly for our actions at Hillsborough.
Our behaviour was not acceptable in any walk of life, let alone on a football pitch.
We let down the management, our team-mates and most importantly the supporters, who had spent a lot of money to support the team.
We accept the punishment given to us by the club and The FA and fully support the club’s decision to refund the ticket costs to the supporters.
We have apologised to the manager, the staff and our team-mates and hope that the supporters accept our total remorse for the incident.
It is our intention to now put this behind us and to give our all for the benefit of Preston North End going forward.
