Sliding Doors

Darren Ferguson cut a lonely figure as his team struggled to contain Burton Albion’s waves of attack last week.

Photo Credit : Joe Dent / Peterborough United

At times, he stood motionless and looked like he accepted that his time at Peterborough United was up.

After multiple promotions and three trophies, for his Peterborough career to end in a bottom of the table scrap would have been tragic.

But, if one game last year had gone differently, Ferguson would not have been fighting for his job in such lowly surroundings.

Football is a game of moments, and this moment changed everything for Posh.

8th May 2024

London Road is packed out with home fans on three sides of the pitch.

A new tifo is pulled up over the GH Display stand and anticipation is in the air.

It’s the League One play-off second leg against Oxford who arrive with a goal advantage.

Peterborough had been flying, and fans are confident that we’ll get a result and progress through to the final at Wembley.

Sadly, that’s not what happens.

Josh Knight gets on the end of a Harrison Burrows free kick from outside the box and knocks it past the Oxford keeper.

The GH Display stand erupts and stewards rush to move the pyros that have been thrown onto the pitch.

Minutes after the restart, Archie Collins takes down Owen Dale on the edge of the box. Cameron Brannagan’s free kick is blocked by Harrison Burrow’s extended arm.

The resulting penalty beats Jed Steer, taking the game to 1-2 on aggregate which is the final score.

The promotion dream was snatched away in a moment of madness.

But, what if...

Archie Collins had not lunged in on Dale from behind?

Or Harrison Burrows had kept his arms behind his back as he jumped to block the free kick?

Or Ephron Mason-Clark made contact with Josh Knight’s long throw in the dying seconds of the game?

It would have been enough to keep us in the game to send us through to Wembley, where we would have faced Bolton.

I’m confident we would have beaten them at Wembley, a stadium that has never seen us lose.

After all, we beat League One winners Birmingham City with a lesser team just months ago.

The question is, would we have stayed up?

To answer that, we only have to look at the success of the players that we eventually sold to clubs in higher leagues. 

Harrison Burrows

Harrison was signed by Sheffield United at the end of that season. His wand of a left foot scored five and assisted three more, helping his team finish third.

Not bad for a left back.

Ronnie Edwards

Ronnie finally got his big move to the Premier League with Southampton that same summer.

He was loaned to Queens Park Rangers, where he excelled and became a fan favourite.

Josh Knight

Knight was the third member of that defence to depart. 

Solid at the back, Josh was snapped up by 2.Bundesliga side Hannover 96, where he played 24 games and scored 3.

He later moved to Championship side Portsmouth.

Hector Kyprianou

Hector, the protector turned defector, stayed another season but left London Road on a sour note.

He has impressed Watford fans, despite the team underperforming; and has featured in every game so far this season.

Kwame Poku

Our mercurial winger left the party after another season in League One for Queens Park Rangers.

Injuries plagued his last season with us and have hampered his Championship campaign, but there’s little doubt he’ll take the step up and impress when he returns.

He almost single-handedly saved us from relegation last season by scoring 12 goals in 31 games.

Ephron Mason-Clark

Losing one of the best left wingers the club has seen in recent history hurt when he signed for Coventry City.

He was loaned back to finish the season here.

His first season in the Championship returned 11 goal involvements from 34 starts.

What could have been

If we could have tied down those six and added Championship-level players, there’s every chance we would have stayed up and consolidated at that level.

Instead, we watched the breakup of the best squad in generations.

Fergie could have been standing in the technical area at the King Power Stadium instead of lamenting his team’s performance in a small stadium surrounded by industrial units.

Sliding Doors

The Gwyneth Paltrow film, Sliding Doors, explored how a small twist of fate can lead to an entirely different outcome.

Peterborough United have had many of those moments:

- Crystal Palace’s 89th-minute winner sending us crashing back to League One.

- Joe Ward’s fouling of Sheffield Wednesday’s Marvin Johnson in the box starting a rapid collapse on the pitch.

Unfortunately, we’re unlikely to be involved in play-off games in the near future.

Our battles are now fought at the other end of the table.

Let’s hope this season’s sliding doors moment isn’t the reason for our relegation.