There is no logical reason for this 1969 Desmond Dekker & The Aces number off their Israelites album. I was looking at a copy of the album in HMV yesterday and saw this was one of the tracks, and just thought it is such a wonderful name to call people, that it really needs using more often. So, I’m going to start with it here. I’m sure it could be applied to many on the forum as well. I was briefly swayed to going for some 808 State based on the time of the train I caught this morning, “In Yer Face” would have been good if we won.
Somewhat cold on the heels of an excellent away win at Charlton Athletic last Tuesday night, it is back to action today with the visit to Peterborough United. It feels even longer than the eleven days it has been, as we should have had a home game against Stevenage last Saturday which Storm Darragh put paid to, much to some nincompoops displeasure. Granted it wasn’t as bad as some other parts of the country, but there were trees down on the main road near the ground that morning, and plenty of other trees down across roads elsewhere in Crawley all day. With the marquee nature of the east stand, and the fan zone, it was felt best to postpone. It may have hit the momentum a bit, but also allows a respite to try and get some of our overly long injury list of players fit again.
With the win on last Tuesday night taking us up one place to nineteenth, it felt a bit flat, but other results saw the table above us concertina. Only with us not playing last weekend it saw both Leyton Orient and Northampton Town win and jump above us in the table, and put us back in the relegation places, the latter doing so on Monday night against today’s opponents. Only five points separate us from tenth in the league (although our poor goal difference effectively makes us another point behind). A win today would jump us above Peterborough as although they are six places above us in fifteenth, they are only two points ahead. And they are one of the few sides with a worse defensive record than we have.
I saw something which said they hadn’t kept a clean sheet for twenty-four games (all their games in all competitions this season). As far as I can tell, they haven’t kept one for the last twenty-two league games, going back to last season, but have kept one against Stevenage in the BSM Trophy this season.
It is my third visit to Peterborough this year. The first attempt saw our January quarter final game in the BSM trophy get postponed due to a frozen pitch as we sat on the Charters bar on the river with less than two hours to go before the game. I made the return trip when it was replayed, and I’m here again, on a nice and early train so I can get some sightseeing done. I was thinking about getting on the tower tour of the cathedral, only for this to be the only weekend they aren’t doing them. I was going to try to get a proper aerial shot of the ground from the top of the cathedral instead of the accidental one I got a few years ago when I did the tower tour previously.
We did lose that BSM game earlier this year and have lost in our only other cup visit here in the League Cup, but in the league, we have a win and a loss at London Road (and the same record at home).
Peterborough’s manager is Darren Ferguson, son of Sir Alex, and who seems to be on a bungy rope attached to the club, as he is in his fourth spell as manager here. Perhaps he is forever entwined with Peterborough’s other serial returner, Barry Fry, almost as if they are the modern-day footballing equivalent of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. He featured on a Topps card, but not as a player, it was as Peterborough manager in his second spell back in 2013.
Outside of that, A&BC had a few Peterborough players in the mid-sixties after they joined the league in 1960 and made quick progress to division two. From 1964-65 is Roy Horobin. If it had been ten years later that image might have been soundtracked by ‘everybody was kung-fu footballing’.
With the game being off last Saturday it threw ticket purchasing plans out a bit, so it required a trip to the club shop on Monday to get a ticket for today, and tickets for Leyton Orient. It also meant I could pick up the latest issue of Reds magazine, which has a couple of decent interviews with Charlie Barker and Max Anderson in, and a nice retro reds piece from Mick Fox. The shop also had a glut of Christmas t-shirts and jumpers, which as I’m the satanic bastard spawn of Scrooge and the Grinch, and for clarity’s sake, that is the pre ghost visits Scrooge, I didn’t buy.
The train journey up to Peterborough went through Stevenage, who we should have been playing last week. I was surprised to see they had set up one of those big wheels you see pop up in big cities and despite my fear of heights I’ve been dragged onto in places like Manchester, Birmingham, Budapest, Copenhagen, and others. You know, places with things to see from the top. So, fuck knows why there’s one set up in Stevenage town centre. Unless there’s an industrial estate appreciation society convention in town. Nincompoops.
Apparently, David Pleat was in their club shop for a couple of hours earlier doing a book signing. I hadn’t realised he’d had anything to do with Peterborough, but he played for them in the 1970-71 season. I remember him from my Tottenham supporting days and the free scoring 1986-87 team when he managed them to their only FA Cup final loss, against Coventry City. He left later that year due to “personal circumstances” and rocked up in Leicester where I lived, and those “personal circumstances” were quickly turned into a joke punchline. ‘How can you tell a prostitute in Highfields (Leicester’s red-light district)? They have a pleat in their skirt.’
Speaking of their club shop, I thought it was impressive when here back in January, but they’ve moved it into a bigger space and it’s even better now.
Got a programme. It’s a hefty affair of eighty pages, but it is an advert fest and only about a quarter of it is actual content.
I Swerved getting a pie at the ground in fear of it being as radioactively hot as the one at Charlton last Tuesday. Even now the roof of my mouth still hasn’t fully recovered.
I could have done with a cap pregame with the bright sunshine, but it had retreated behind the west stand by the time kick off arrived. There is great noisy support well before kick-off, and sorry Matt, the away drummer is better than you.
And there are a whole series of new stickers on any available surface before kick-off.
The stands have some proper old school wooden flip down seatage going on.
The teams line up with Peterborough in all blue and us in all red, as if we’re going to start an old school game of table football.
We start well, with good possession and pressure, but struggle with that final telling ball to get a shooting opportunity. And it’s nearly ten minutes before Peterborough have their first proper attack and they win a corner. It’s half cleared, fired back in, JoJo Wollacott saves, and some pinball breaks out in the six-yard box before the ball is cleared off the line and away up the right where Ronan Darcy picks up a booking for a clash in midfield.
Peterborough win another corner and the shot flies over the tall, empty south stand for the only ball loss of the day. Another corner soon follows, we clear and Darcy crosses from the right and Tola Showumni’s shot is blocked on the edge of the area. We go down the left and Ade Adeyemo cuts into the box, wrongfoots a couple of defenders before his shot is blocked. It falls to Panutche Camara, and his shot is over the bar.
There is a long clearance, and Toby Mullarkey fails to deal with the ball or the attacker, Joy Mukena makes a hash of an attempted headed back to Wollacott, leaving it short, the attacker rounds Wollacott and slides it in past the despairing lunge from Charlie Barker to score and it’s 0-1.
We attack and have a shot blocked on the edge of the area, Peterborough break and their right winger cuts inside, across the box, past three statues and slots it into the corner and in true Tommy Cooper style, just like that, we are down 0-2.
It could have been worse. Camara is fouled in their half, but nothing is given, they break quickly again, and force a save from Wollacott. It’s followed by another Peterborough corner and another shot over the bar. Mukena picks up a yellow card for a mistimed lunge trying to stop their flying right winger.
We break from the free kick down the right, but Darcy’s ball is too strong for Showumni to get on the end of. A minute later another Darcy cross goes deep and it’s Peterborough’s turn to make a hash of things, and Adeyemo slams it in to pull one back and it’s 1-2.
And again, Peterborough give the ball away in the box, this time to Showumni but his shot is blocked. We go back down the right and win our first corner. Put into box and headed clear for another one, only for that to be too long and go out for a goal kick.
A left-wing attack sees a deep cross from Camara and Darcy has his shot saved. We keep the pressure on and a ball into the box sees Showumni tangle with a defender and them both go to the ground and a free kick for Peterborough. Two minutes of added time are played before the half time whistle goes with us trailing 1-2.
The promising end to the first half is deflated on Peterborough’s first attack of the second half. There is a long cross right to left, it’s played into the six-yard box, and two Peterborough players have unchallenged touches before ignored is turned in and we trail 1-3.
But we pick up the pace quickly. Adeyemo goes down the left and his cross is deflected for a corner. The cross bounces around in the six yard before their keeper saves it. Peterborough attack, have a shot blocked and the follow up goes wide. Adeyemo down the left again and his cross is put behind for another corner.
We rob Peterborough in midfield and the ball is fed to Will Swan on the edge of the area, he goes past a defender and slots it in the corner, and it is back to 2-3.
A throw in front of the away support on the left gets played over to the right and Darcy floats a cross over the keeper and Showumni is on hand to poke in from an inch out and we are level 3-3. What a fucking game this is.
Adeyemo again down the left, cuts inside and has a shot from twenty-five yards out which the keeper saves on the second attempt. We go back down the right, and it’s crossed to Swan who has two shots blocked. Only for Peterborough to break with speed again, two passes and slotted in for us to trail again 3-4.
We’re back on it again, Adeyemo down the left, cross blocked for a corner. Cleared for another which is played short before the cross in is collected by the keeper. And it’s time for the substitutions to start. Darcy, Showumni, and Swan are off and replaced by Harry Forster, Tyreese John-Jules, and Rushian Hepburn-Murphy.
Forster is straight into the action and crosses from the right, Adeyemo’s shot ix spilled by the keeper, who just beats RHM to the ball and stays down “injured”. Once we restart, it’s Adeyemo down the left, (and please stop me if you’ve heard this before) and his cross is put behind for a corner.
Camara is the next to be subbed being replaced by Jack Roles. There is a bit of a lull in proceedings, some back and forth. Peterborough win a corner and we make our final substitution with Max Anderson being replaced by Bradley Ibrahim before the corner is headed clear. A Wollacott clearance is flicked on by Adeyemo to Roles who feeds it to RHM who beats a defender and gets into the box and shoots, but it is inches past the far post.
Peterborough attack and Wollacott makes a save for a corner. Roles smacks a clearance in the face of a Peterborough player, it rebounds to RHM who is off only for the ref to blow for a stoppage for a potential head injury. And then to start with a drop ball giving it to Peterborough on the edge of our area despite us being in possession twenty yards up the pitch when he blew his whistle. Absolute nincompoop.
There are five added minutes, which is a total piss take. Four goals, nine subs, two “injuries” and blatant time wasting. Ten would have been more appropriate. Not that the ref would have allowed us to score anyway. Forster is hacked down in full flight only for nothing to be given, as if it were Stevie Wonder reffing. That was a nailed on yellow card and free kick. Absolute fucking nincompoop.
And the final whistle goes, and it is a disappointing 3-4 loss. Another where defensive lapses have cost us. If we could attack with the kind of pace Peterborough showed we’d be unstoppable. We have shown we can score, but the defending is still our Achilles heel. That is the fourth time this season (in all competitions) where we have scored three and lost. The away support were immense all game, a wall of noise, so much so, that if the crowd was announced over the piss-poor tannoy system, then it was drowned out.
The result leaves us in the relegation zone now two points behind Bristol Rovers and Northampton Town, yet only six points behind eleventh place. It is tight.
Outside the ground a random Peterborough fan came up to me and shook my hand and wished us the best of luck for the rest of the season. And walking back to the city centre I was in amongst the Peterborough fans and all any of the weirdos were talking about was next year’s impending visit of Birmingham City. Not one was talking about today’s game.
There was time to get a very tasty post-match curry in at 1498 The Spice Affair,
And some night photos of the cathedral before the seemingly long train journey back to Crawley.
There are nine days until our next game, one rearranged by FSS against the aforementioned Birmingham City side now in the automatic promotion places in a game pitching the league’s biggest budget against the smallest. But as we know, anything can happen.
Come on you reds.