[themaclad]

London Road, currently known as the Weston Homes Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is a multi-purpose stadium in Peterborough, England. The stadium is in Fletton, south of the River Nene. It is currently used mostly for football matches and is the home ground of Peterborough United. The stadium holds 15,314 and was built in 1913, though the present ground bears no resemblance to the original following several periods of redevelopment.[2]
The stadium was built and opened in the early 1890s, consisting of a single wooden stand with a capacity of just 250, and it was replaced in 1923 with a 650 seater. It was owned by the city council and taken over by The Posh following their formation in 1934. The council built brick dressing rooms and a committee room at the back of the wooden stand to support the club. These survived until the 1950s, when the North Stand was constructed.[2]

The two goal-ends were the next to be built. Many home fans had traditionally stood at the London Road End, so a covered standing terrace was constructed there just before the Second World War. A similar structure was built at the Moy's End at around the same time.[2]

Financial difficulties during the war years meant that the city council very nearly terminated the ground lease. Another local sports club almost took a 10-year lease, but 'The Posh' were saved in 1942 by two individuals who paid the £50 owed in rent by the club.[2]

In the 1950s, the council sold London Road to the club following a long-term lease, and it was at this time that major development of the ground began. In 1953, the Moy's End was refurbished with new covered terracing and a similar improvement was made at the London Road End just over a year later. A new stand, with 2,404 seats and standing room in the front, was constructed behind the old wooden stand in 1956 and opened in time for the 1957–58 season. The wooden stand was demolished, leaving a gap of 30 yards between the new Main (North) Stand and the pitch (the pitch was moved back the following season).[2]

A new standing terrace was then built at the Glebe Road (southern) side of the stadium shortly after the completion of the Main Stand. Four executive boxes, along with a television platform, would later be added to the structure. Floodlights were added to the stadium in 1960, with four pylons erected at each corner of the ground. Joe Richards, who was then chairman of the Football League, performed the switch-on ceremony. The first match in which the floodlights were used was against Arsenal in February 1960.[2]

Following the club's promotion to the First Division in 1992, the Main Stand was forced to undergo re-development. This was because the stadium's seated capacity was below the level required by the Taylor Report. To solve this problem, the stand's terraces were converted to seats, with 700 of these new seats were bought second-hand from Leicester City following the re-development of their Filbert Street stadium. Another 300 seats were taken from Millwall's stadium, The Den. Millwall were about to move into a new stadium themselves. With a capacity of 3,605, the Main Stand's facilities were improved to include a pub, conference areas and a retail shop.[2]

Due to increased support, a new stand was constructed on the Glebe Road side of the ground. The two-tiered South Stand, with a capacity of 5,000, opened in time for the end of the 1995–96 season. The Football Trust contributed roughly £900,000 to the project. The stand was initially sponsored by Freemans and then by Thomas Cook. It was then called the Norwich and Peterborough Family Stand, due to a deal with the Norwich and Peterborough Building Society.[2]

The new millennium saw the London Road End and Moy's End fitted with new roofs and crush barriers to comply with safety requirements. The pitch received a large make-over in 2001 when the entire playing surface was removed to insert 1+1⁄4 miles (2.0 km) of new drainage pipes and 500 tons of gravel and sand.[2]

In 2014 the Norwegian company ABAX [no] (electronic triplogs, GPS positioning) signed a five-year sponsorship, worth £500,000, with Peterborough FC and renamed it the ABAX Stadium .[3]

In August 2017, the club announced that BGL Group become the new sponsor of the south stand with it to be known as the “BGL Family Stand.” This deal is set to last three years until 2020 and follows on from previous partnerships between The Posh and BGL Group where BGL sponsored both the teams Foundation as well as the First Team shorts in years previous.[citation needed]

When the FA submitted their bid for England to host the 2021 Women's European Championship, London Road was listed as a host venue. However, when the bid was successful, plans had to change as London Road did not meet UEFA regulations.[4]

On 1 June 2019, the ground was renamed the Weston Homes Stadium as part of a ten-year £2 million sponsorship deal.[5]

LAST TIME OUT



FORM GUIDE

POSH 2 PNE 14

PNE Team News

North End will be without Greg Cunningham who will be getting a scan to discover the extent of the calf injury which forced him off on Wednesday night.

Josh Murphy is nearing a return to action, looking to join in with training with the rest of the group next week, but this game will come too soon.

Tom Barkhuizen remains sidelined with his injury.

The Opposition

Following their promotion last season, it’s not yet been the return to the Championship that Peterborough United would have wanted.

They head in to the weekend sat 22nd in the division and two points below the dotted line, but with at least one game in hand on all the sides around them in the table.

The Posh lost talisman Siriki Dembele in the January transfer window to AFC Bournemouth, but there’s still plenty of talent left in their squad, with the likes of Jonson Clarke-Harris and Jack Marriott attacking options for Darren Ferguson.

Key Stats

This will be the 26th meeting between these two sides, with Peterborough edging the head-to-head record with ten wins to PNE’s nine.

Peterborough have conceded more goals than any other Championship team this campaign, having let in 59 goals in their 28 matches so far.

Andrew Hughes could come up against his former side on Saturday, having made 102 appearances for the Posh between 2016 and 2018.

Our Last Meeting


North End came out on top in the reverse fixture between these sides, with Patrick Bauer scoring the only goal of the game on his long-awaited return from injury.

The centre back headed home to earn his side the three points on his first league appearance in eight months.

Man In The Middle

Tim Robinson will referee his 14th Preston North End fixture when he takes the whistle on Saturday.

He has taken charge of two PNE games so far this season, the away draw against Bristol City and the defeat at Bloomfield Road.

Robinson has refereed 25 matches this term, showing 107 yellow cards and five reds.

POSH HERO TERRY BLY

He was renowned for his goalscoring prowess, most notably for Norwich City and Peterborough United, scoring a record 54 goals in the latter's inaugural Football League season of 1960–61.[1] He then played for Coventry City and Notts County before joining Grantham in October 1964.

FAMOUS PETERBOROUGH PERSON

William Speechly (1735 – 1 October 1819) was a late 18th- and early 19th-century English horticulturist, best known as the head gardener to William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, and for his skill in growing pineapples and grapes.
William Speechly was born near Peterborough, Northamptonshire, probably the second son (baptised 25 February 1735) of Ralph Speechly, a butcher and grazier of Orton Longueville, Huntingdonshire, and his wife Sarah Blackwell.

He was said to have had a good education and showed an early interest in horticulture, engraving sketches of fruit, flowers, and designs on copper plates.

Speechly served an apprenticeship as a gardener at the estate of William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam, at Milton Abbey, Northamptonshire. He was subsequently employed by Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle at Castle Howard, North Yorkshire and then as head gardener to Sir William St Quintin, 4th Baronet at Scampston Hall, Yorkshire. In 1767 he became head gardener to William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, the 3rd Duke of Portland at Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire.

At Welbeck Abbey
In 1771 Bentinck sent Speechly on a tour of gardens in Holland where it is thought he learned about the design of stoves for hothouses, which he later improved on. In 1776 Bentinck asked him to write a description of the method of planting trees on the Nottinghamshire estates for Alexander Hunter's edition of John Evelyn's Silva. This later appeared as an article in Hunter's Georgical Essays (1803), in which Speechly also contributed a note on the possibility of raising pineapples.

Speechly established the first effective system for the cultivation of pineapples in England. He was particularly concerned that they should not be kept at too hot a temperature in the winter and experimented with forcing pineapples in beds of oak leaves instead of the comparatively expensive and unpredictable tanner's bark. In 1779 he published a Treatise on the Culture of the Pine Apple.

This was followed in 1790 by a Treatise on the Culture of the Vine, which described 50 species of grapes, and discussed hothouse culture, the construction and management of vineyards in open air, pruning, irrigation, grafting, insect and blight control. The work was organised in four books: the first presenting an annotated list of 50 grape varieties, and discussing the management of the vine in the hothouse; the second on the vinery and including observations on pruning and watering; the third covering grafting, insect control, and remarks on the age and size attained by vines; and the fourth on vineyards. Both works were republished in one volume in 1820.

In 1797 Sir John Sinclair, president of the Board of Agriculture, asked Speechly to prepare sections on gardening and domestic rural economy for a comprehensive work on agriculture. But the project was laid aside in 1798, and in 1800 Speechly's manuscript was returned to him at his own request. He then began writing A General Treatise on Gardening.

Later life
In 1801 following the death of his younger son, Speechly left Welbeck Abbey to take over management of his son's farm at Woodborough Hall, Nottinghamshire. He was succeeded by his pupil, Joseph Thompson, then gardener to the late Lord John Cavendish, Northamptonshire.
During this time he neglected his manuscript on rural economy, but on his retirement to King's Newton Hall, near Melbourne, Derbyshire, he completed and enlarged it. This work, devoted to the management of cottage gardens, was published in 1820, with several other essays appended, under the title Practical Hints on Domestic and Rural Economy.
He received the honorary medal of the Board of Agriculture for his essays on agriculture.
Speechly died on 1 October 1819 aged 86 at Great Milton, Oxfordshire, while living with his only surviving child Sarah and her husband John Stevenson,[1] a surgeon.

Due to death he won't be at the game on Saturday

MACS VIEW

We re aquaint ourselves with former manager Darren Ferguson, his side are in the relegation zone having an inability to defend which at Championship level is not a good look
Early doors set off tomorrow to a ground were I have never won at, one memorable occasion was 31/12/1978, coach broke down, got bricked going through the outskirts of Coventry arrived at half time only to lost to a penalty in the last 15 seconds. Hopefully not as chaotic tomorrow bit of a banana skin of a game but is winnable 800 plus tickets sold, be warned not the greatest viewing area in the main stand

[themaclad]

Peterborough United 0 Preston North End 1 Archer

Peterborough United line-up: Benda; Thompson, Knight, Kent, Coulson (Mumba, 61); Brown, Fuchs (Marriott, 79), Norburn; Ward, Clarke-Harris, Poku (Jones, 85). Subs not used: Cornell, Szmodics, Grant, Morton.

PNE line-up: Iversen; van den Berg, Bauer, Hughes; Potts, Whiteman (Ledson, 77), Browne, Johnson, Earl (Sinclair, 69); Riis (Evans, 61), Archer. Subs not used: Ripley, Lindsay, McCann, Rafferty.

Attendance: 9,072 (1,020 PNE fans)

Referee: Mr T Robinson.

It was fitting that the last tackle of the game was made by Brad Potts given he was by a country mile North End's best player on the day, for a player who gets tons of stick at times he seems to winning the fans over, when subbed at Hull last week got an ovation when he left the pitch.
Two changes from the match on Wednesday Earl and Riis in for Evans and Cunningham.
Dry pitch, gale blowing across the pitch meant it was never going to be a classic, we started off well Hughes pinned a cross against the bar and for the first ten minutes or so it looked far to easy.
Passes began to go astray and United got on top, a couple of weak efforts, Ward hit the bar  with a touch from Iversen wouldn't have counted as offside then Brown fired wide with a decent effort.  We had a couple of efforts neither which troubled Benda between the sticks( don't think he actually made a save all afternoon.
Second period never really got going, the giant Dane had to make two decent saves as our defence seemed unable to make a tackle to stop the shops going in, Bauer made a vital intervention in the six yards box got injured for the cause, then came a minute which changed the game, Ward free kick for them 35 yards out hits the top of the bar, from the goal kick, Johnson, to Browne to Archer onto his left foot to curl one past Benda, cue mass celebration on and off the pitch. A few scares towards the end, probably didn't deserve three points but you take them and move on, after nine games in 27 days suspect all players will be glad of the mid week break that is coming up.

Peterborough United manager Darren Ferguson told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire:

"A game we didn't deserve to lose. My goalkeeper's not had a shot to save.

"The one real bit of quality in the game won the game.

"We just need a little break. Ward hits the bar, they go up the pitch and score.

"But in terms of what I'm looking for - a committed performance and a determined performance and one with intensity - we got that today."

Preston North End manager Ryan Lowe told BBC Radio Lancashire:

"I'm not really too bothered about the performance. I'm more interested in the win.

"The performance was not as great as we would have liked, but who cares? We have played better and lost or drawn.

"It was going to be a moment of brilliance from either side [which won the match]. The conditions didn't help.

"Luckily enough, that moment of brilliance came from us."