It’s Time for Revenge

Peterborough United and Lincoln City, despite being just 45 miles apart, are not traditionally rivals.

Photo Credit : Joe Dent / Peterborough United

Rivalries are forged over decades of bitter clashes. Each match is a highly charged affair with the coveted prize of bragging rights up for grabs.

However, that has changed in more recent times. The rivalry between Posh and Lincoln has started to feel more intense than other League One matches.

You only need to look at two matches to work out why. 

1. May 1st 2021 - Posh 3-3 Lincoln

In the 96th minute in a Covid-era empty stadium, Jonson Clarke-Harris buried a penalty, sending Posh to the Championship and pushing Lincoln out of the automatic promotion places.

2. January 25th 2025 - Lincoln 5-1 Posh

In the 80th minute I left the LNER stadium after watching a complete collapse on the pitch. It’s 4-1 and I had seen enough.

As I walked between the red-bricked houses of Sincil Bank, I heard the roar of another Lincoln goal. Anger mixed with despair.

We will meet again on Saturday

Lincoln fans still hold a grudge against Sammie Szmodics for going down easily in the box, winning the penalty that ended their Championship hopes.

For Posh fans, that humiliation in January when Posh came off the rails at the LNER stadium hasn’t healed. It was the start of an awful run where we thought we had hit rock bottom.

Only, we weren’t even remotely close. 

One of us will get revenge, but who?

Since we rebooted our team at the end of summer, we’ve seen improvements and picked up valuable points. 

However, these were against Wycombe and Plymouth, two teams struggling for form and sitting in the bottom half of the table.

Posh have given fans a reason to be hopeful, scoring more goals in the last three games than they managed in the previous two months.

We kept a clean sheet at Plymouth, a feat that took 25 games to achieve last season.

We finally have a team that can compete in this league

But Lincoln is a different proposition and a much sterner test. They’re third in the table and have only lost once this season.

Momentum is everything in football, and while we have sparks of form, can we turn those flickers into a full blaze?

Their manager, Michael Skubala, has them well-drilled, and frontman James Collins already has four goals this season.

It’s fair to say that they rattled Chelsea and had them on the back foot for the first half of their Tuesday night Carabao Cup meeting, ultimately losing by the smallest of margins.

Pride hangs in the balance

Lincoln will want to exorcise the Ghost of Szmodics past and get back-to-back wins to turn the tables on Posh, who have had the upper hand against Lincoln since those Covid days.

Ferguson will want to avoid another thrashing, which will damage our fragile resurgence.

But I doubt that we’ll see a performance as abject as our last at Sincil Bank.

We are a stronger, wiser and more capable team. 

I firmly believe that we have enough to secure another three points.

Then, we can say that “we’re back” with confidence

That would mean we can finally put the mess of the past season to rest and get back to exciting football and winning ways.

Without Cambridge in League One this season, Northampton and Lincoln are the closest we’ll get to a derby this season, so I intend to make the most of the atmosphere on Saturday and hope Lincoln brings enough fans to fill the GH Display stand and create some noise.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, and those autumnal winds are picking up.

We’ll see who they favour in a few days.