The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Seven mad minutes ruined everything
Centre-back Gaby Zakuani believes Posh would have become a strong Championship club, but for seven mad minutes at Selhurst Park on the final day of the 2012-13 season.
Posh had delivered an outstanding run of form in the second half of the season to leave themselves within touching distance of a great escape from relegation.
And with Posh leading 2-1 at Crystal Palace late in the game they looked set to stay up , only for fate to play a nasty hand as the home side scored twice to dump Posh back in League One.
And Posh have been there ever since. Indeed they haven’t even made the League One play-offs for the past five seasons.
And yet it could all have been so different.
“Relegation at Crystal Palace was the unluckiest thing I’ve ever been involved in,” Zakuani insisted.
“It’s still hard to take now.
It’s still hard to look back on that final game .
“And when I do look back I still think ‘what if?’ as if we had stayed up that season I am sure we would have kicked on to become a successful Championship side.
“We had been in unbelievable form since the start of the new year and we had built up a points tally that should have been enough to stay up. We had become a really good side all over the pitch.
“But losing like we did was heartbreaking.
It’s so hard to talk about it even now.
“It was just a massive blow for a lot of people especially the gaffer. He didn’t deserve that.
“It really took the wind out of our sails. That summer was a really long one even though the gaffer spent a lot of time trying to encourage us and promising that we would bounce straight back.”
Posh lost star striker Dwight Gayle (pictured), ironically to Crystal Palace, that summer and replaced him with Britt Assombalonga.
Posh finished sixth in League One the following season before losing to Zakuani’s first English club Leyton Orient in the play-off semi-final.
Zakuani watched both matches having left Posh for a spell in Greek football with Kalloni the previous January. “I watched the first leg on TV and then watched the second game from an executive box at Orient,” Zakuani recalled. “And I was heartbroken by the result.
“I cared so much for the club and I felt really disappointed for the gaffer.
“I’d left the previous January as I was in the last year of my contract and we couldn’t agree terms.
“I loved it in Greece. I went on a short-term deal, but after I’d played four matches they offered me a two-year contract. It was a good offer and I really enjoyed the football, but I wasn’t sure about life off the field so I came back.
“And when Barry Fry rang me to say Darren would take me in a heartbeat I was keen to get back to Posh.
“Darren told me he thought we would have beaten Orient with me in the side, although that was the first time I’d seen Jack Baldwin play and he was excellent.
“I could have gone to Scotland or France, but I wanted to come home.”
Zakuani played 253 games for Posh in those two spells after initially signing from Fulham on loan with a view to a permanent deal in September, 2008.
Posh won promotion to the Championship in Zakuani’s first season at the club when he formed a formidable centre-back partnership with Ryan Bennett.
“I loved playing with Benno,” Zakuani added. “I have never played in a partnership when we completed each other so well since.
“It was just perfect. I did flatten him once after the one piece of miscommunication we suffered in all our games together, but generally we got on great. That team scored lots of goals, but we also defended well.”