Had Burnley’s most famous son, Sir Ian McKellen, been looking down at London Road from the heavens on Saturday a few worrying thoughts may have crossed his mind. The first, and perhaps scariest concept he’d have considered first is how the hell he ended up floating in the sky above Peterborough in the first place. Being magically transported from ones home to being 1 mile above an eastern cathedral city is not a situation people often find themselves in and considering the ramifications could take some time. Indeed, it would take a lot longer than the 3 minutes he’d have had before his home town club found itself one down to an Emile Sinclair goal.
Emile Sinclair controlled a Lee Tomlin pass expertly, the ball sticking to his foot as if he was some kind of football based Magneto. Sinclairs goal vindicated Ferguson’s decision to make Taylor an X-Man (I’m sorry). Posh dominated the opening half with some fine attacking football. McCann, Bennett and Sinclair all came close only for Burnley to shout “You Shall Not Pass” (it gets worse), until on 38 minutes Sinclair won the ball and shot past Lee Grant who must have felt like he was being attacked by rats in Room 101….. arse, that was John Hurt wasn’t it? What else was Ian McKellen in? Scandal, yes wait a minute – I can rescue this……one thing Burnley didn’t do was Keel(er) over with Keith Treacy pulling one back just before the half time break.
During the break Sir Ian may have thought back to his first TV role in David Copperfield, but as good a magician he was even he could not have got Burnley a point such was Posh’s industrious play. Ryan Bennett, being watched by Stuart Pearce, particularly excelled and his fine play combined with a sterling performance by Paul Jones in goal kept Burnley at bay but for the most part Posh continued to dominate with an award winning performance. McKellen’s own major award came in his portrayal of Czar Nicolas II in Rasputin, as in Ra Ra Rasputin, well today Posh celebrated 3 points and the arrival of their own Boney Em.