With a semi-final penalty shootout victory at Wrexham, MacAnthony was overjoyed to see his team secure a second trip to the national stadium in a year for the EFL Trophy Final.
When Posh plays a star-studded, lavishly assembled Birmingham City team in the April 13 final, they will be the overwhelming underdog.
With “The Blues” able to sell more than 50,000 tickets, it appears to be the largest crowd to ever witness Posh play competitively.
According to MacAnthony, the League One winners-elect have already made a cheeky request to wear blue in the final and receive a portion of the Posh allotment. Prior to the semi-finals, Posh won the vote to wear the home uniform.
Those requests were made to Posh director of football Barry Fry who managed Birmingham when they won the EFL Trophy in 1995. That was the last time Birmingham won the competition hence MacAnthony’s ‘Battle of the Champions’ comment as Posh are the current holders.
The biggest crowd at a Posh game is 64,531 at Aston Villa for a 1961 FA Cup tie.
“I’m really happy for everyone to be going back to Wembley,” MacAnthony said. “I’m particularly happy for the fans who have been rewarded for sticking with us through a tough season. For them to get to see such a dramatic win was special.
I’m sure the plates and glasses were smashed at Sky, Disney, Paramount and everyone else who wanted the ‘Hollywood Final’ though.
Instead we have the ‘Battle of the Champions.’ It will be David v Goliath and we can’t get carried away given who we are playing, but, on a big pitch, we can win.
It should be a glorious occasion. Birmingham will probably bring 50,000 fans. I think they’ve already been on to Barry to have some of our allocation! And to be honest we won’t sell 50,000 and the more fans at the crowd the more money we make.
They also asked Barry if they could play in Blue and he said ‘sure, for a million quid!
“It’s been put to the back of our minds now though. We need to fully focus on our League One position.”
Leave a Reply