Peterborough Sports vs Royston Town: FA Cup 3rd qualifying round replay
Peterborough Sports are my local non-league club, and they have an incredible story. The club was originally formed in 1908 and was initially called Brotherhood Engineering Works, a team created for the factory workers of the company fronted by Peter Brotherhood. The company itself was renowned for creating the first steam turbine engine in the world and to this day, Peterborough Sports retain the nickname ‘The Turbines’ and chants of ‘Turbines’ echo from the stands at PIMs park on matchdays.
In recent years, Sports have been on a meteorological rise. When former manager Jimmy Dean took over in 2015, the club wore blue and yellow and were in the United Counties League Division 1 which represents step 6 of the English football pyramid. In 9 seasons, he managed to take the club all the way up to step 2, the National League North, which is the league they are still playing in today. Now wearing orange and black and managed by former Barnsley and Nottingham Forest goalkeeper Luke Steele alongside non-league nomad Michael Gash, the club have been battling it out to survive since joining the league and have so far been successful in doing that.
In 2023, the club were bought out by local businessman Tim Woodward who now owns the club in its entirety, replacing former chairman Grant Biddle. This was seen as a necessary step, as major investment into the ground was required for Sports to be able to even compete at this level. Woodward says that he has some ‘seriously ambitious plans’ for the club which will excite many of the Sports faithful who will be hopeful that he can build on all of the good work that Biddle and Dean did and his aim will be to take the club even further. The ground has since been upgraded to a 3,500 capacity, with more seating in place on the side of the pitch and 2 larger terraces in the corner and behind the goal implemented over the course of the last couple of seasons. As someone who visited the ground before the promotion to the National League North, I can tell you that it is a completely different setting than it was before, as many areas of the ground were uncovered and featured no stands, only a bit of grass to stand on and a metal railing.
We followed the club in the previous round of the FA Cup, travelling to Enfield Town to watch them take on the North London club. In that game, readers will know that they won 1-0 thanks to a Dan Lawlor penalty in a solid but fairly uninspiring game. They were subsequently drawn against Royston Town in qualifying round 3 and drew away at Garden Walk with the game finishing 0-0. The next step of the FA cup journey came on Tuesday night, with rain lashing down in droves as we walked up Lincoln Road to the ground for the replay.
The location of the club is often seen as a factor for the lack of support, the club struggle to regularly get a good attendance for the level that they play at, with other teams in the league such as Scunthorpe United reaching attendances of over 4,000. Other clubs like Hereford and Kidderminster also bring in high gates of over 2,000, with many more sides in the division getting over 1,000 as well. Sports unfortunately sit second bottom of the average home attendances league table with an average of 310 so far this season (Source: https://www.footballwebpages.co.uk/national-league-north/attendances), only Farsley Celtic get lower than that, averaging 115. The demographic of the area surrounding PIMs park is mainly Asian and eastern European, with neighbouring club FC Peterborough, who we wrote our first blog post on, taking a large majority of the Asian support as a self-proclaimed community club. This, along with the fact that Peterborough United exist in League One and obviously take the largest percentage of local football supporters in the city, has created a much talked about problem at PIMs park about how they can get more people through the turnstiles.
For this match, the gate could have been higher if ticket prices had been lowered. Peterborough Sports had planned to reduce the ticket prices for this game, being a replay on a Tuesday night with bad weather predicted. An adult ticket usually costs £18, but Sports wanted to lower it to £10. Unfortunately as this is the FA Cup, both parties have to agree to this as gate prices are split evenly between the two clubs as they are for all FA Cup ties. The away side however did not accept this proposal and wanted to keep prices at the higher level. Turbines fans made their displeasure about the Royston Town chairman well known as they vocalised it on several occasions, not a great look for Steve Jackson.
Peterborough Sports have a good record against Royston Town, having not lost to them in 4 meetings, with the last win for Royston Town against them coming in 2019. The game was much livelier than the one we saw in Enfield with chances for both sides coming in the first half along with some hefty tackles in the pouring rain, which made it feel like a proper non-league affair. Ryan Fryatt missed a great chance to take the lead as his header crashed onto the bar following a whipped in free kick from Hugh Alban-Jones. There was also a massive penalty shout as we were stood behind the goal that Sports were attacking in the first half, what looked like a clear foul on Kaine Felix was waved away by the referee.
The second half saw more Sports pressure on the Royston goal, with attackers Dion Sembie-Ferris, Michael Gyasi and Kaine Felix proving a real handful for the Royston defenders and linking up well on many occasions. The breakthrough finally came after 77 minutes as Michael Gyasi burst into the area on the left hand side, the Royston backline tried to make an intervention but only saw the ball spill to Dan Jarvis who remained ice cool to take it around the goalkeeper and finish. The goal sparked wild celebrations next to us behind the goal and great scenes as Dan Jarvis and the rest of the Sports players went into the crowd and celebrated together with the fans.
There is a real sense of unity at Peterborough Sports, and despite not having the biggest attendances in the National League North, the spirit of the club is strong and unwavering. There is a close-knit bond between the fans, the staff and the players and that is something that makes this club stand out. There is still a hope that they can bring in some more passionate fans through the gates, as the potential is definitely there for this club to have a real bouncing atmosphere every week if more people came through the doors. For now though, the loyal fans, many of whom were there before the rise to step 2, are doing this club justice.
The FA Cup dream remains alive for Peterborough Sports, as they now face a trip to Rushall Olympic in the 4th qualifying round. This means that they are only 1 win away from the 1st round proper, which would mark a monumental achievement for the club.
Written by Joe Horne
