Preston's emergence as a power in junior football from 1900 saw pressure build for the fencing of Preston Park, and the V.J.F.A. by 1901 was demanding that teams in the First-Rate Division must have "fenced grounds", although it is not quite clear whether the fencing was to be around the perimeter of the park or the actual playing field itself.  

Although many clubs pressed for fences around their grounds, the need for them was rather more practical than perhaps that of today.

Given much of the area was more or less open grazing land, the fences were required as much as anything to keep cattle and other animals off the playing area.   In fact, it wasn't unknown for some grounds to be leased by the local Councils and Shires for agistment of cattle or goats during the week, leaving the footballers and cricketers of the day to contend with a few steaming cowpats on the wing or just short of a good length!

Preston Park got its inner fence along with a press box and ticket gates in 1904, but there was already conflict between the club and the Shire both over access to the Park and the level of rental that the club should pay.   For a couple of years, the club managed to avoid paying rent by organising a number of working bees to carry out improvements to what were, in effect, the Shire's property at the Park, but by 1907, the Shire wanted to see something rather more tangible in rental.

Eventually a deal was struck that the club would pay one-third of nett gate takings to the Shire, but just exactly what did "nett gate takings" mean?

Following acceptance of the 1907 accounts at the Annual Meeting early in 1908, the Club's relationship with the Shire of Preston exploded in a series of Shire meetings described by the Preston Leader as "the most prolonged and animated arguments in the Shire Chambers for some time".

The furore started when Cr. Allchin, an honorary auditor of the Club who had signed off the 1907 accounts, made use of a Shire meeting to describe the Preston Football Club's figures as "fake" and designed to divert income from the Shire.

Preston's audited accounts for the year showed an average nett income on home games of just 2/6 (25 cents) per match, and Allchin's somewhat belated objection was that Preston paid their gate-keepers a total "salary" of 30 shillings per game which was deducted from the gate when calculating the "net" figure.

Allchin's concern (and perhaps a reasonable assessment of what appeared to be some early evidence of creative accounting) was that the gate-keepers then always "donated" their salary back to the Club at the end of the season, the so-called donation being included in general revenue, and not gate takings.

Preston's president, Mr. J. T. Ralph deplored the Shire Council's stand, declaring "... there was never a better body of men associated together than the Preston Football Club and the way they have been treated by the Council is a disgrace".>

The dispute attracted several letters to the Preston Leader, and eventually Cr. Allchin, perhaps caught between his criticism in the Shire meetings and his earlier sign-off of the 1907 accounts withdrew his objection and the status quo remained.

Just how long the rental arrangement continued is not certain, but even as late as the mid 1930s, Preston's annual reports regularly acknowledge "the generosity of our many gate-keepers, who donate their salary back to the Club".