The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
North End seek a speedy hat-trick of derby wins
Football - Whittlesey visit the Bee Arena for Friday night action
Resurgent Peterborough North End chase a hat-trick of Thurlow Nunn Division One derby wins when hosting Whittlesey Athletic at the Bee Arena on Friday evening (January 21, 7.45pm).
The city side have charged up the table after home wins against Huntingdon (5-0) and Parson Drove (3-1) to give themselves an outside chance of reaching the end-of-season play-offs.
A win over Whittlesey, who are fifth, would move North End up to sixth place, albeit probably only for 24 hours.
On-loan Yaxley player Josh Hales bagged a hat-trick in last Saturday’s win over Drove and will look to do similar damage to a Whittlesey side who haven’t played since a 6-0 FA Vase defeat at home to Newport Pagnell on December 11.
Not that boss Tom Florence believes his side are now favourites to win.
“It could be a good time to play Whittlesey,” Florence said. “But knowing them they will be just as hard to play against and beat as they always are. I have a lot of respect and admiration for them and I’m not surprised they are having a great season.
“They have been together for a long time. They are always competitive and they won’t be giving us a minute’s peace for the 90 minutes. They are in the last play-off place and I can’t see them slipping out as they are so together as well as talented. We are a better and more confident side now than when we lost to them earlier in the season though.
“We are enjoying our football. We are fielding a settled side and we are playing well, especially at home where only the top two in the division have beaten us. We have an outside chance of reaching the play-offs.
“We would probably have to win nine of our 11 remaining games, but after Whittlesey we only have two teams currently above us in the league to play and one of them is Norwich CBS who are the team currently in the playoff places we could catch. I’m hoping for a bumper crowd tomorrow. We had almost 200 at the away game which was also played on a Friday night and we hope to get to 150 tomorrow.
“It’s a derby which hopefully increases the attraction and if we can claim a third derby win in a row that would be some achievement.”
Tom Florence: ‘We’d need to win nine of our last 11 games to reach the play-offs.’