Today I'm going back 38 years to 1984 and York City's visit to London Road, Peterborough to play United in a Fourth Division fixture that had 5,216 in attendance.
This was my second of five visits in all to the London Stadium (today known, for sponsorship reasons as the Weston Homes Stadium) and remains the only occasion on which I've witnessed York win there. It's likely that City won't get another chance to visit London Road because, in 2020, Peterborough Council signed an MoU with a developer aiming to build a brand new 19,500 capacity arena for Peterborough United known as the Embankment Stadium, similar to the new Ferencvaros stadium in Hungary, and with a projected completion date in 2023. Given the impact of Covid19 and the usual planning consent issues I doubt that the Posh will have a new stadium that quickly however.
One of my female friends commented that they enjoyed looking at my programme articles because some of the covers looked so old fashioned (I think "retro" is the word that she meant to use). I guess that because such programmes are part of the fabric of my life I hadn't realised how dated they might look to fresh eyes. Today's featured programme does look like it's from another age even to me however but it's a thing of beauty don't you think? Football paintings can often be dreadful pieces of artwork, done as they often are, by well-meaning amateurs. At least with this one, proportions and perspectives seem to be okay although perhaps the crowd in the background could do with a bit more work? Certainly it was wishful thinking on the part of the artist to have "the Posh" playing in front of such a jam packed stadium!
As already mentioned, York won the featured game 2-0 with goals from John McPhail and John Byrne. City played their classic promotion winning line-up comprising Jones, Senior, Hay, Sbragia, McPhail, Hood, Ford, Haslegrave, Walwyn, Byrne and Pollard. In goal for Peterborough that day was a very young David Seaman (no ponytail yet) who would go on to carve out a glittering career for himself with Arsenal and England in particular. Also appearing for the Posh was player-manager John Wile who made his name at West Bromwich Albion as a more-than-rugged centre-half (if you can picture him it's with blood poring out of a bandage on his head right?). Later in the game Peterborough introduced substitute Ray Hankin who managed 38 appearances with the Posh scoring 9 goals in a career with overall statistics of 398 games and 129 goals. My recollection of Hankin was that he was fond of a red card but he stayed on the pitch in this one.
Season 1983/84 was one of York's red-letter seasons. It was the one in which they were promoted as Fourth Division champions having become the first club to break through the one hundred points barrier in a single season with 101 points. This was York's first ever divisional title and they haven't won another in the 38 attempts since! Peterborough, who today can be found fighting for their lives to stay in this season's Championship (two levels higher than this match) finished the season in seventh place back in the days before end-of-season promotion play-offs were introduced.
CRB Match No. 301
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