Peterborough United v. Birmingham City. EFL League 1
Wembley Rehearsal
Tuesday 8th April 2025. EFL League 1. My 118th game of the season. Venue: The Weston Homes Stadium, London Road. Peterborough United (1) 1 (Kwame Poku 22) v. Birmingham City (2) 2 (Alfie May 19, Taylor Gardner-Hickman 37) Attendance: 10,640 inc. 3,749 away fans.
I arrived at London Road and took my seat eleven minutes before the game kicked off. Strewth! Just look at the size of that big digital display clock!
Tonight's entertainment was rehearsal for Sunday’s Wembley EFL ‘Vertu' Trophy Final and… and before I forget, there was also a slightly more pressing matter to be resolved, relating to the outcome of this game. Whereby, if Birmingham City won, they would automatically be promoted back to the Championship, at the first time of asking, with six games of the season still left to play. In the event, they did precisely what they needed to do and as a consequence, Blues are once again a Championship club.
Peterborough United: Nicholas Bilokapic, Carl Johnston (James Dornelly, 64), Archie Collins (Ryan De Havilland, 84), Malik Mothersille (Cian Hayes, 64), Abraham Odoh, Kwame Poku, Ricky-Jade Jones (Gustav Lindgren, 76), Mahamadou Susoho (Hector Kyprianou, 64), Sam Hughes (C), Harley Mills, Emmanuel Fernandez. Unused subs - Will Blackmore, Jadel Katongo.
Birmingham City: Ryan Allsop, Alfons Sampsted (Ethan Laird, 61), Krystian Bielik (C), Christoph Klarer, Alex Cochrane, Marc Leonard (Paik Seung-Ho, 61), Tomoki Iwata, Luke Harris (Grant Hanley, 87), Taylor Gardner-Hickman (Keshi Anderson, 61), Willum Willumsson, Alfie May (Jay Stansfield, 75). Unused subs - Bailey Peacock-Farrell, Kieran Dowell.
First things first. Happy belated birthday to the legend that is Barry Fry, who turned 80 years of age yesterday. Mr Fry has a huge affinity with both sets of supporters who’d turned out tonight, to watch the first of two games between these sides that are taking place this week.
At the weekend, Birmingham had trounced Barnsley 6-2 at St. Andrew's @ Knighthead Park; while Peterborough, who’d been enjoying a brief run of half-decent results of late, went down 0-4, at home, against Northampton Town. In the process of seeing-off a very spirited Posh side, who could be proud of their efforts to give Blues a game tonight, the visitors recorded their 29th league win of the current campaign, while reaching the impressive landmark of having scored 100 goals in all competitions this season.
The game was only two minutes old, when Alfie May pounced on a stray backpass and burst forward towards the hosts goal, but Nicholas Bilokapic blocked the livewire striker’s shot with his legs. It was actually Peterborough’s manager, Darren Ferguson, who’d given May his Football League debut, while he was managing Doncaster Rovers. Bizarrely, this is the fourth time that ‘Fergie Jr’ (I assume you all already know who his ‘slightly’ more famous father is) has been in charge at London Road.
The joke about his football travels, goes something like: You can buy a ‘Ferguson return’ ticket from the local railway station, which allows you to travel anywhere you like in the EFL, but you always end up back at Peterborough. Prior to becoming a professional footballer, May had plied his trade at: Corinthian, Billericay Town, Chatham Town, Bromley, VCD Athletic, Erith & Belvedere, Farnborough and Hythe Town, before he joined ‘Donny Rovers’ in 2017. Tonight, in the 20th minute, via the underside of the crossbar, he netted his fifteenth goal of the current season, after rising to meet Taylor Gardner-Hickman’s hanging left-wing cross, with a well directed header.
One could be forgiven for wondering which version of Peterborough United would turn up tonight, given their somewhat inconsistent and erratic levels of performance this term. But they quickly answered that, by claiming a well-taken equaliser just three minutes after going behind. The visitors only half-cleared the ball from a corner and Kwame Poku smashed the loose ball past Ryan Allsop with a stunning left-footed shot.
This was the third time I’ve attended London Road to watch football in recent months. The first was on Boxing Day, when Mansfield Town walloped Posh 0-3 and made them look like odds-on certs for relegation. Then just a few weeks ago, Posh effectively dismantled an hitherto in-form Charlton Athletic 3-0, when they’d seemingly morphed into a very slick unit, capable of containing their play-off chasing opponents and counter attacking them at pace to good effect.
Saturday's result (what a load of Cobblers!) suggests that they weren't at the races then. But tonight, the hosts played as well as anyone could reasonably have expected them to have done, against the champions elect. In the final analysis, Birmingham had a touch too much quality for the lively home side and patiently wore down Ferguson's side, with a professional and measured performance, that always suggested they had more in reserve if they needed to up the ante to get the game over the line.
A bit like when Davies’ side had come back from a two-goal deficit to beat Posh 3-2 at St. Andrew's the last time that the two sides met at the end of September, a result that saw Birmingham claim top spot in League 1 for the first time this season. With half-time approaching, Blues restored their lead, a series of neat passes through a congested midfield area, led to Mark Leonard playing the ball out to Gardner-Hickman on the left flank, from where he cut into the area and threaded a liw shot under the advancing Bilokapic.
Peterborough had a great chance to draw level again on the stroke of half-time, as Harley Mills played a pinpoint diagonal pass through the visitors defence to pick out the run of Malik Mothersille, who took the ball around Allsop, but couldn't keep his shot on target and bulged the side netting, in front of a noisily deposed away end.
After the interval, Blues played the clock down very effectively. At times they appeared to be on some kind of bonus for the amount of consecutive passes they could string together. Posh chased and did their level best to to close off all supply lines, to the visitors forwards, without a second thought that they’ll probably now be knackered fir the weekend’s Wembley final.
Mothersille went close again, but his shot deflected wide of the left hand upright. While Allsop pulled off a great instinctive save to keep out a downward header from Sam Hughes. Hughes to his credit, had put in a proper captain's performance all night. The substitutions came and went as both managers looked to freshen things up towards the end of the game.
Ethan Laird cued up a shot for Luke Harris inside the closing five minutes, but he shot wide from twelve yards out. The full-time whistle sounded and the large contingent of travelling Blues erupted into a cacophony of joyous songs of celebration. FT: 1-2. “And now you're gonna believe us… Blues are going up!”. Far be it for me to dig-up all of the innuendo and conjecture about the peripheral stuff, that led to Birmingham City slipping into the third-tier in the first place.
Because, in actual fact, a year in League 1, where the financial rules are different to those in the upper echelons, has effectively given Blues the chance to reset, rebuild and put together a squad capable of actually competing in the Championship. As opposed to returning to the tedious perennial struggle, phucking about with battles against relegation year after year. You could say, there's been a complete blue rinse at St. Andrew's @ Knighthead Park flushing out all of the unwanted brown stinky stuff.
In football as in life itself, experiencing seemingly traumatic setbacks can actually be a good thing, if you have the capacity and wherewithal to learn from your mistakes and put things right. This is neither the time or place to be making wild and outlandish predictions about what the future holds, so let's just say: Blues have taken a first, very big step, in the right direction. It’s going to be a much less daunting task to keep the momentum going, now that the club as a whole, has such solid foundations in place to build on for the future.
I’m intrigued to see which variation of Peterborough United will turn up at Wembley Stadium on Sunday. See y’all there.