Peterborough United Secure Vertu Trophy History With Second Straight Win

14/04/2025 13:22 Share

Peterborough United Secure Vertu Trophy History With Second Straight Win

Peterborough United secured a place in the Vertu Trophy record books with victory over Birmingham City in the 2024/25 final at Wembley Stadium, with the Posh becoming the first team to successfully defend the title.

Twelve months on from a dramatic late victory over Wycombe Wanderers thanks to two goals from Harrison Burrows, Peterborough emerged victorious against the newly crowned League One champions to not join Bristol City as only the second team to win the competition three times.

Darren Ferguson also now stands alone as the most successful manager in competition history having been in charge of Peterborough for all three wins.

The two teams went into the final on the back of a league meeting a matter of days early, which Birmingham had won 2-1, and it was the champions who had the first real chance as Jay Stansfield fired a shot wide within three minutes of the start from inside the box.

However, Peterborough quickly gained a foothold in the game and took the lead in stunning fashion with 15 minutes on the clock.

The lively Kwame Poku was felled just outside the box and youngster Harley Mills stepped up to curl an unstoppable free-kick beyond ‘keeper Ryan Allsop and into the top corner.

Birmingham tried to fight back into the game before the break but instead it was Peterborough who extended their advantage just before half-time.

Mills was involved again down the left-hand side and after Ricky-Jade Jones flicked the ball on, captain Hector Kyprianou fired a shot back across Allsop to make it 2-0.

An increasingly tetchy second half saw Birmingham try to reduce the deficit, but the Peterborough defence – marshalled well by Jed Steer at the back – was able to hold firm as Birmingham were larger forced to settle for half chances.

Stansfield did manage to beat Steer late on only for his effort to be ruled out for offside, before the ‘keeper pulled off a fine reaction save from Lukas Jutkiewicz during eleven minutes of injury time.

The final whistle resulted in jubilant scenes amongst the Peterborough fans as they added to wins in 2014 and 2024, and will now look to build on the success to help secure a place in League One once again for next season over the final games of the campaign.