Posh Blog

If my last away trip was to the best stadium of the season, my latest one is to what is undoubtedly the shittest. The Withdean is Brighton's "temporary" stadium of over 10 years and is little more than an athletics track with some scaffolding and a shed around the edges. The away fans are situated about 50 yards away from the edge of the pitch which means you can struggle to see the game if the ball is in the other half. The stands are completely open to the elements and are impossible to generate any atmosphere in. To top it all off, this wonderful experience cost £20! Only £6 less than it cost to see us play at Elland Road, or £15 more than it cost to see us play West Brom.



The match itself didn't start off brilliantly, we tried out a new formation which made us look disjointed an unorganised. Giving a rare start to Shaun Batt appeared to be a bad idea as he misplaced almost every single pass he attempted. Brighton inevitably scored first after Joe Lewis dropped yet another shot right at the feet of an opposing striker. I make it about the 5th time this season, while he saves shots Mark Tyler would never ever be able to save, he seems to make up for this with the amount of mistakes he makes.

Fergie finally made the right decision to switch back to our usual formation and immediately we repaid the decision by scoring two goals to take the lead. It looked like we would be able to take a lead into a half time despite a shakey start but then we thought we'd make it interesting by not bothering to defend a corner and allowing Brighton to equalise in injury time. Because Brighton's changing rooms are literally just Portakabins we were all able to listen to the half time team talks by standing by an air vent. Predictably ours contained lot's of *bleep*s, shits, *bleep* and wankers



We finally hit full form in the second half with George Boyd in particular on top form, Brighton obviously sensed this as they decided to kick him out of the game, one foul almost sending him flying into the "dugout", or box as it is at the Withdean. This fouling brought about our chance to take the lead again as they brought down Boyd in the box. Unfortunately we had missed our three penalties prior to this one but the culprits for those had been banned from taking any more, Dean Keates stepped up instead and got the job done properly for a change. McLean sealed the points 15 minutes from time by bundling the ball over the line from a Mackail-Smith shot. This gave us the oppurtunity to bring on our new signing Lee "sideways move" Frecklington for a few minutes.

Tomorrow we play Yeovil which we must win if we are to keep up the pressure on MK Dons, we still are able to get promoted automatically and that's what Darragh MacAnthony is still aiming for.

Next Match Attending

Posh v Yeovil
14/1/09 3pm
London Road