The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Who were the most fearsome forward lines?
Posh boss Darren Ferguson’s recent comments about his forward line possessing a ‘fear factor’ prompted a PT poll on the best strike partnerships in the club’s history.
Twitter only has space to mention double acts and unsuprisingly the ‘Mac Attack’ of Craig Mackail-Smith and Aaron Mclean won our race with 55.8% of the near-900 votes cast.
Ivan Toney and Sammie Szmodics were second (25%), Tony Adcock and Ken Charlery were third (11.9%) and Dwight Gayle and Lee Tomlin fourth (7.3%).
But what would the outcome be if we used threepronged attacks?
Here is the PT verdict on the most fearsome forward lines in the lifetime of our chief Posh reporter…
5th) Dwight Gayle, Lee Tomlin and George Boyd.
Effective at Championship level once the technically outstanding Gayle arrived at the club. Tomlin was a mercurial talent and Boyd enhanced more than one superb Posh forward line.
4th) Tommy Robson, John Cozens and Jim Hall.
You'd possibly think Hall and Cozens would be too similar to complement each other, but with Robson’s accurate deliveries from the wing they scored 32 goals between them in the 1973-74 Fourth Division title-winning season. Robson chipped in with nine goals as well that season.
3rd) Tony Adcock, Ken Charlery and Bobby Barnes.
Adcock was a genius on the ball and was a big factor in Charlery becoming a Posh
goalscoring legend in the early 1990s. Winger Barnes was terrific as was Worrell Sterling on the other flank.
2nd) Ivan Toney, Siriki Dembele and Sammie Szmodics.
Toney was a collusus, but he also enjoyed a great support act. Three very different players gelled superbly. Toney had power and touch, Dembele was a dazzling dribbler
and Szmodics was energetic and deadly.
1st) Craig MackailSmith, Aaron Mclean and George Boyd.
‘The Holy Trinity’, ‘The
Fab Three’, call them what you like, but they were all individually brilliant and even better together. A testament to the club’s fabled scouting network and Ferguson’s supreme coaching.