Andy Preece

English footballer and manager (born 1967)

Andrew Preece (born 27 March 1967) is an English football manager and former professional footballer who is the manager of Chorley. After serving as Chorley's director of football, he became the club's manager in May 2022. As a player, he was a forward He notably played in the Premier League for Crystal Palace, and in the Football League for Northampton Town, Wrexham, Stockport County, Blackpool and Bury. From 1999 onwards, Preece combined his playing duties with various coaching and management positions. He became player manager of Bury in 1999, also going on to manage Worcester City, Northwich Victoria, Airbus UK and Southport. "It went backwards from there," he said in 2020. "I got glandular fever; they released me, and I had to work my way back. I'd half given up on football. I played a lot of cricket, including going out to play in Australia for six months."

In July 1989, he rejoined Worcester City briefly, and in March 1990 signed for Wrexham, for whom he scored his first known goals. In 51 league appearances, he scored seven times.

After leaving Bury in December 2003, Preece returned to playing with Carlisle United. Although Carlisle were eventually relegated to the Conference, Preece chose to remain with the Cumbrians for the following season. David Nugent was signed by Preece after unsuccessful trials with Crewe Alexandra and Northampton Town, and went on to net Bury close to £1 million. Preece kept the team in League 1 for two seasons until the collapse of ITV Digital forced the sale of several players and administration for the club in 2001, resulting in their relegation to League Two. Preece's Bury reached the League Two play offs in the 2002–03 season. Preece was released in December 2003 as Bury again tried to cut costs. Bury director Roger Barlow said that Preece's departure was for financial reasons and nothing to do with results on the pitch. and led the side to three consecutive top ten finishes in the Conference North then, in 2006, to the second round of the FA Cup. He left the club in October 2007.

Preece became caretaker manager of Northwich Victoria on 25 February 2009. In the 2009–10 season, he led Northwich to the second round of the FA Cup, a considerable achievement, and saw his side defeat former Premier League side Charlton Athletic in the process. Preece won manager of the month for April for his achievement of six successive wins. In the same season, he saw his side finish 12th in the Conference North in his first season in charge; however, financial issues saw his side relegated to the Northern Premier League Premier Division. In spite of relegation and financial uncertainty, he stayed at the club along with his assistant Andy Morrison. On 21 August 2010, at the age of 43, he returned to football action for the first time in three years by coming off the substitutes' bench in the 90th minute, in a game which Northwich won 1–0 against Retford United on the opening day of the 2010–11 Northern Premier League Premier Division season. On 17 February 2011, he scored a seven minute hat trick as Northwich defeated Barnton in the Mid Cheshire Senior Cup. He resigned from the club on 16 January 2012, along with the rest of his management team, with the club reporting that he was expected to be appointed Director of Football at Welsh Premier League side Airbus UK Broughton the next day.

As expected, on 17 January 2012, Preece was appointed to the Airbus UK role. He led the part time side to runners up in the Welsh Premier League in his first full season qualifying for the Europa League This was the first time Airbus had finished in the top half of the table and the first time that a black English manager had led a team into Europe. In Europe, Airbus were only eliminated on away goals by Latvian side Venspils. The following season Airbus finished runners up again to full timers TNS. They qualified for the Europa league losing 3–2 on aggregate to Norwegian side FK Haugesund. Preece became the first Black English coach to lead a team into Europe in two successive seasons.

On 8 February 2017, he returned to the North West to become the new manager of National League side Southport, replacing Steve Burr, until the end of the season.

After a spell coaching in Vietnam, Preece moved into his current role of Director of Football at Chorley, combining first team coaching with leading the club's education programme. In April 2023 he took charge of his 750th match as a manager.

Preece's wife and daughter were only a couple of rows behind Crystal Palace supporter Matthew Simmons when the Eric Cantona kung fu kick incident occurred at Selhurst Park in January 1995.