[theo_luddite]

Background - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Roa...t_2025.jpg
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Pish Posh Land Stadium
London Road
It's less than 30 minutes walk from Pish Posh Station
But it's a few more than 10, whatever they claim
On their website.
PE2 8AL

Kick-off 15:00 UK Time
Saturday 31/01/26

Images are either my own creations, licensed to me free of royaltes, or obtained from WIKI and CC and credited accordingly.

So having accidentally blown away the first version, I decided an offline version with a lot of copy and pastes into this one might be safer.

Is it just me? Did someone flip a switch somewhere so all the threads are suddenly centre justified and a smaller view? It was OK last night.
The preview of this looked kinda 'normal' but it all went centred when I posted it.

Town head down the A1 to London Road for the return fixture against a side with whom we've got a strange kind of rivalry with. Most of it comes from play-off games and all of them have been at the end of the season in this division.

Pish Posh are the 2nd side we play in 3 consecutive games that sacked their head-coach/manager after underwhelming starts to the season. There's another coming. In their case, they relieved favourite go to manager, Darren Ferguson, of his job yet again, though I'm guessing they've kept his nameplate for recycling again in the not too distant future. Of course you'd never catch Town panicking so early in the season. Oh no. We normally leave it until at least February ...... (er, quite).

Town won the first fixture 3:2 back in early September.


How to get there

Currently known as the Weston Homes Stadium the ground is failry easy to get to from the A1 via the by-pass/ring road by car or a short walk from the railway station.

More details here.

Pubs, Pies 'n' Pees

On the tellybox

Not this weekend. HTTV in furrin lands or dodgy sticks (allegedly).

Latest news

Jon Stead is back in the building. He's joined Liam Manning's coaching squad and if anyone can get the front line firing it's him.
https://www.htafc.com/news/2026/january/...ing-staff/

It is 100 years since we were crowned Champions of the Football League (aka The Prima Donna League now) for the 3rd time in a row. The first club to achieve this feat,Town are organising a number of functions to celebrate.
https://www.htafc.com/news/2026/january/...ns-events/

Goal of the month for League One, nay, the whole EFL is gonna be hard to predict unless there's another worldie this weekend. (not).

Just in case you missed it

Out Injured/Suspended/Isolating

Alfie May has appealed his red card from Tuesday. He's unlikely to play on Saturday unless the appeal is in any way successful, but he will be available for the EFL Trophy match against Donny Rovers a week next Tuesday as it's a different competition.

Mr. Bojangles Radulovic came off with a hammy pull just before May's red card, he's having a scan Thursday. Unlikely to play also.

Not seen anything to make me any the wiser at about 14:30 on Friday for the above pair.

Antony Evans and Sean Roughan are doing partial reintegration into training with the rest of the squad after knee and groin injuries respectively. Jack Whatmough remains out with a calf injury.

Back training but not oven ready/Back in the frame

Marcus McGuane has served his one-match suspension for the red card he received against Bradford and is available for selection against Peterborough. Herbie Kane has been back in full training since last week.

Last time out

If you'd have told me that after the disaster at Burton that Town were going to win the next two games with only 10 players for 30+ minutes in one game and 60+ in the following one I'd be asking for some of whatever it is you are drinking or maybe smoking (even though I don't smoke). Suffice to say we did it again with a 1-0 win over Luton thanks to a well hit first time shot from just over the halfway line by skipper Ryan Ledson.

Luton played as bad as we have when we've played against 10 men this season and depending on whose stats you read, both sides only had one shot on target, or maybe Town had two. Who cares, only one of them mattered.


(Created with https://www.lineup-builder.co.uk/)
No we didn't score 2 goals, one of the joys of playig with someone else's website for the first time.

Pish Posh went down the A1 to slightly closer neighbours Stevenage and lost 1-0 on Tuesday. They are on a win-one-lose-one run at the moment, but more of that later.


Link to Posh line-up on https://x.com/theposh

Of the teams that started in the top 8 on Tuesday, 6 of them won and two of them lost. Those 2 being Bradford (again) and Luton. That meant that with Wycombe also winning, they jumped over Luton into 8th place with Stevenage moving up to 7th. Cardiff battered Barnsley, Lincoln walloped Bradford, Bolton beat Burton in the 2nd half of their game, Stockport won at Blackpool to stay 4th.



Nobody from Luton (now 9th) down to the trap door won on Tuesday. The only two other clubs to win were Yorksha League members Doncaster, who moved up to 21st after bashing Orient 3-0 and Rotherham who stayed below Northampton despite the 2:1 win. Burton stayed on the trap door with their defeat though there wasn't much movement above them

Table

After a run at the Play-off's last season, Pish Posh were hoping for a similar run this season, however they got off to an inglorious start with only 1 draw, at home to Sadfud in their 4th game amongst a run of 6 defeats. They were bottom of the Division at this point by a margin. They then won 5 of their next 10, but lost the rest before going on a run of 14 games where they won 9, including a run of 4 wins, drew 1 and lost 4 (wonder what happened to cause that?). This has moved them up into mid-table mediocrity and only 4 places and 7 points behind Town.



Musical Interlude

Keith Palmer (aka Maxim Reality) of The Prodigy is from these parts. I've heard of them but I don't really recall hearing them. Anyway - go knock your self out if you have - https://theprodigy.com/videos/

Another from around here is Andy Bell, of Erasure fame amongst others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn_59fAbCZw

https://youtu.be/x34icYC8zA0?si=4ih3dmCEkuDUWuam

You can also throw in Paul Nicholas of Grandma's Party and a few West End Musicals fame. He had a few minutes of glory on TV in the 80's too with Just Good Friends for those of you with long enough memories. There are some things best not shown.


The Sack Race

Michale Appleton was relieved of his duties at Shrewsbury a few days back, less than a year after being brought in. Relegated to League Two last season, the Shrews have only won one of their last 11 and getting battered 5:1 by MK Don's on Saturday probably didn't help followed by Tuesday's 1:0 defeat to Cambridge. They are currently two places and two points above current just below the trap door dwellers, Newport.

Gavin Cowan, until Wednesday the manager at National League Brackley Town and a former Shrews player, has already been appointed. The Shrews have agreed a compensation package with Brackley. It's not known how many sets of training gear, footballs and new nets are involved.

You might all be aware of another change a bit nearer to home since my last thread.

Innies and Outies

After spending a couple of £m in the summer window off the back of receiving £4m and change for a couple of players they sold on, they've not bought anyone yet in the January Sales. A few have departed for match time elsewhere.



Who's banging 'em in

Harry Leonard was signed from Blackburn in the Summer for about £1m and looks like he might have been another astute bit of Pish Posh business.



They can't all win

Cardiff go to Burton, who must be wondering what they did to upset the fixture computer this month - not that we put up much resistance. Let's hope they return to form. Lincoln are also on their travels at Wigan, who can upset anyone (including our fans) on their day, as are Bolton who go to pick up the litter in Wombledon. Smogport are at home to Plymouth and there's a Yorksha League fixture at Bradford who welcome Doncaster. Just out of the top 6, Stevenage are at Barnsley and Wycombe are at Mansfield, meaning most of the top 8 are on their bikes.



Down amongst the deadmen, Port Vale are still looking for someone to breath life into their one or two match new manager bounce. Maybe they should have kept Darren Moore for a bit more of his umpteen year contract? They might be paying him off for a while. They go to Orient. Rotherham have the long trek to Exeter, Northampton are home to Reading in a strange 2pm kick-off, while Donny will be hoping to climb onto the trap door above Burton with at least a point at suddenly piss poor Bradford.


We've played 'em before

Town are ahead with 10 League wins to 8 but are behind in the (currently League One) play-off games. Our first loss was in the 91/92 season where we drew 2-2 at Posh only to lose 1-2 at home. Then there was Old Trafford on 29th May 2011 when not only did the heavens open and the rain pummelled you into the ground, as it always does in Manchester, but thousands of free t-shirts rained down from the stands as disgruntled Town fans let Lee Clark know how we felt about his tactics and leaving leading scorer at the time, a certain Jordan Rhodes, on the bench until we were 3:0 down. Wonder what happened to him, let alone the enigma that was Benik Afobe, who got the nod on the day? I might have mentioned that before and why wouldn't I?



Next up?

We head into February (what already? ) with Blackpool at home next weekend (to make it 3 out of 3 of those managers I mentioned earlier) with Donny Rovers at ours in the EFL Trophy Quarter Final on the following Tuesday.

Pressers

I see we're back to the tame pressers again, Manning and Mumba get the not too difficult grilling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqj7Dc5bkwI

This is one version of the official presser that Mr. Chicken might not mind you listening to

The view from the A1

If only? There's a few pre-match pressers available from down there for some previous matches, but not many.
Must be a joy to be a Pish Posh fan knowing how well your club values you that they inform you of nowt on their home website or YouTube channel.

If the bloke keeping Darren Ferguson's seat warm (Luke Williams) says anything I'll add it later.

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May's appeal unsuccessful - 4 match ban

and it's not just me is it?

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Oh, it's suddenly gone OK again.