The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
A night to remember at Wembley for Posh
Next Tuesday (May 26) is the 20th anniversary of what some Posh fans regard as the ‘forgotten final’ when Barry Fry’s team beat Darlington 1-0 in the old Division Three play-off final at Wembley.
Posh press officer Phil Adlam managed to get captain Andy Edwards (AE) playercoach Steve Castle (SC), forward David Oldfield (DO) and goalkeeper Mark Tyler (MT)
together to reminisce and the Peterborough Telegraph’s Alan Swann was given permission to listen in.
SETTING THE SCENE
It had been a typically tumultuous season under the management of Barry Fry with star men Simon Davies andMatthewEtheringtonsold for a combined fee of £1.2 million to Premier League soon after a club record 5-0 home defeat on Boxing Day 1999 at the hands of Rotherham United.
Popular coach Paul Ashworth was then sacked and replaced by Wayne Turner, but somehow Posh pulled themselves together to finish fifth and reach the play-offs.
In the semi-final Posh beat Barnet 2-1 away thanks to goals from Jason Lee and Andy Clarke and 3-0 at home thanks to David Farrell’s superb hat-trick before taking on an expensively-assembled Darlington side led by Marco Gabbiadini in the final.
BEES ARE BADLY STUNG
SC: We won 2-1 in the first leg at Barnet and I can remember the atmosphere at Underhill more than the match. Every other time I’d been involved at Barnet there seemed to be just one man and his dog there, but it was packed to the rafters for this game. I’m not sure we deserved to win, but we battled.
MT: We’d have won more comfortably if ‘Clarkey’ hadn’t walked that ball into the net when he was offside. If he’d have left it, the ball would have gone in anyway!
DO: We were very conscious it was only half-time. I’m not great at remembering specifics, but we finished the regular season on a good run so we were confident we’d go well in the play-offs.
MT: In the second leg ‘Faz’ was unbelievable, He tore both full-backs to shreds and scored three worldies with left-foot, right-foot and then a 40-yard chip. It was a pretty easy game which suited me as I was working my way back from injury.
SC: Faz went home straight after the game. That’s the sort of bloke he was. The rest of us did his celebrating for him though. There was a 10-day break before the final so we could let loose.
BIG MATCH PREPARATIONS
AE: We went to Jersey for a bit before the final as a treat and as a team-bonding exercise it was perfect. I had a slight injury which bothered me so I had to be careful out there and have some early nights. I remember a few lads indulged themselves. No names though!
SC: We also went to the Marriott in Cheshunt for two nights before the final.
DO: The final was a Friday night as England were playing Germany at Wembley the following day. We didn’t do many things differently to a normal game. We knew Darlington were a very good side with attacking threats and prep was difficult because of the gap between the games, but we worked hard as well as letting our hair down and we approached the final in good spirits.
AE: All I can remember
Division Three Final table 1999-2000
P W D L GD Pts (C) Swansea 46 24 13 9 21 85 (P) Rotherham 46 24 12 10 36 84 (P)Northmpton 46 257 14 18 82 (PO)Darlington 46 21 16 9 30 79
(PO) POSH 46 22 12 12 9 78 (PO) Barnet 46 21 12 13 11 75 (PO) Hartlepool 46 21 9 16 11 72
Key: CH=Champions, P=Automatic promotion, PO
Play-off semi-finals:
1st leg: Barnet 1 (Arber 22), Posh 2 (Lee 5, Clarke 68). Att: 4,535.
Hartlepool 0, Darlington 2.
2nd leg: Posh 3 (Farrell 28, 70, 89), Barnet 0. Att: 10,515. Darlington 1, Hartlepool 0.
Final
Darlington 0, Posh 1 (Clarke, 73).
Posh: Tyler, Scott, Drury (sub Hanlon, 44), Rea, Edwards, Castle, Jelleyman, Oldfield, Farrell, Clarke (sub Green, 89). Darlington: Collett, Heckingbottom, Tutill, Oliver, Aspin, Liddle, Gray, Atkinson, Gabbiadini, Duffield, Heaney.
Att: 33,383.
Future Premier League star official,Mike Dean refereed the 2000 Division Three play-off final. about the build-up was having to deal with requests for complimentary tickets. No-one ever used to come and watch me play so I didn’t normally need any, but because it was Wembley I had 85 requests! We only received four free tickets so I had to pay for 81. We also only got four tickets each for the bar afterwards so I nipped down the local shop to get some photocopies. I had about 60 in my possession. One night Wayne Turner knocked on my door saying he’d heard about the bar tickets so I thought I was in trouble, but it turned out he needed some for himself!
MT: Friday morning was very low key. It was light hearted I just got myself ready with a light session with our goalkeeper coach Tony Godden. He was excellent with me.
AE: It smashed it down with rain all day and pessimist that I am I thought the match would be called off. It was a big game for three of us here, but not so much for Oldfield as he’d played in many big games. He told me on the way to the game that he once scored twice for Manchester City against Manchester United! I remember we’d had suits measured up for us in Peterborough to wear to the game whereas Darlington turned up in tracksuits.
DO: There’s no way I would have mentioned a game I played for City at that moment!
A STICKY START TO THE FINAL
MT: My warm-up was horrendous. I hated it. The rain was still heavy, not good for a goalkeeper. I was really stressed and when I slipped over kicking the ball for the first time in the match I felt sure I was going to have a nightmare.
SC: It wasn’t much of a game in the first-half. We didn’t play well, but Mark was in good form and the lads defended well.
AE: It was a sticky start. We didn’t give up many chances though.
DO: I played up front just off Clarkey. I don’t think I touched the ball in the first 10 minutes. I was very ineffective in the first-half.
SC: At half-time Barry spent five minutes saying how crap we’d been. That was pretty much what he said in every teamtalk in my three years with him! But to be fair he worked well with Wayne. Barry would gee us up and Wayne would deal with the more technical stuff. Steve Butler was helping coach at the time and he was involved in tactics, but Wayne deserved a lot of plaudits for what he did that season. He came in at a rough time and picked us up.
AE: Wayne got us organised. He gave us clarity in our roles, but you could have a laugh with him as well. He’s the best coach I’ve played for and he deserved more success than he got. I’ve played for