PETERBOROUGH Panthers may have won last season's Elite League Championship Play-Off Final against the Bulldogs, but they haven't always come out on top when the two teams have met in a Cup Final.
Reading dropped down to the Premier League for the 1997 season and ended up winning the title by some distance at the first attempt. The following year the Racers had to play second fiddle to the Panthers as the Cambridgeshire club won the championship with Reading in second place. The two clubs however, still had plenty left to race for as they both progressed to the 1998 Premier League KO Cup Final.
It had all the ingredients to be cup classic - some of the best young riders in the business, the 1998 champions elect Peterborough, 1997 champions Reading who were the 1998 runners-up.
The first leg of the final was at the East of England Showground and, all the talk in the Panthers camp was of how much of a lead they needed to take to Smallmead for the second leg. Nobody expected a Racers first leg victory as Peterborough had gone two years without a home defeat.
The Panthers went into the match with an abundance of talent at their disposal: Glenn Cunningham, David Howe, Brett Woodifield, Phillip Berge, Nigel Sadler, Simon Stead and Oliver Allen.
Managing the Peterborough team was a certain James Lynch.
For the Racers it was: Dave Mullett, Justin Elkins, Petri Kokko, Phil Morris, Lee Richardson, Paul Clews and Krister Marsh, with Reading being managed by the legendary Tim Sugar.
Reading immediately got their noses in front with a 4-2 from Mullett and Elkins over Cunningham and Howe in heat 1.
Peterborough levelled it at 6-6 after heat 2, but successive 4-2's from the Racers put them into a 14-10 lead after heat 4. The Panthers drew level with a 5-1 in heat 5 from Woodifield and Berge, but it was a result of a huge slice of luck as Mullett retired whilst leading.
Cunningham won heat 6 for Peterborough ahead of Richardson, but with Howe defeating Marsh for third place, the Panthers edged in front at 19-17. Kokko won a shared heat 7, but Howe and Stead fired in a 5-1 in heat 8 and Peterborough now had themselves a 27-21 lead.
Heat 9 was a 3-3, but Kokko won heat 10 ahead of Howe and Morris was third. The resultant 4-2 pulled the score back to 32-28. However it was a costly race for the Panthers as Cunningham ploughed into the fence and the subsequent knee injury was to keep him out of the rest of the final - including the second leg at Reading.
Sadler defeated Elkins and Mullett for a shared heat 11, but the Racers levelled things up with a 5-1 in heat 12 from Kokko and Clews over Stead and Woodifield, with the latter retiring whilst leading. Reading went ahead at 40-38 with a 4-2 in heat 13 from Richardson and Mullett and, retained that slender two-point advantage when Berge won a shared heat 14 ahead of Clews and Marsh. Morris and Stead had originally crashed heavily on the first bend of heat 14 and subsequently neither were fit enough to come out in the re-run.
This meant Peterborough needed a 5-1 in the final race to win the first leg, but Berge and Howe couldn't match Richardson out of the gate and the race ended 3-3. This resulted in the Racers pulling off a feat nobody else had managed at the Showground in two years and the 46-44 first leg win put them in pole position going into the deciding leg at Smallmead three days later.
Reading lined up at Smallmead for the deciding leg without Morris who suffered rib injuries in his heat 14 fall at the Showground, but the Panthers had their own problems as they were without number one Cunningham and key reserve Stead. Leigh Lanham was called up as a guest replacement for Cunningham and Ross Brady deputised for Stead. The Racers operated rider-replacement for their injured Welshman.
Reading got off to a flying start at Smallmead and with a 21-9 lead after just five races, it was all over bar the shouting. That lead became 28-14 after heat 7 and although the Panthers did register a 5-1 in heat 8 from Lanham and Woodifield, it was the visitors only heat advantage of the evening and the Premier League KO Cup was safely on its way to the Racers for the first time in their proud history.
Kokko won heat 12 to complete a 10 (paid 12) maximum and, further heat wins for Richardson in heat 13 and 15 gave the young Brit an 18-point full-house. The latter came as a 5-1 with Mullett over Lanham and Woodfield, which saw Reading win the meeting by an awesome 57-33 scoreline (113-77 on aggregate).
At the end of the evening the cup was presented to Reading skipper Kokko by another former captain of the Racers - the legend that is Jan Andersson. Sadly to this date, that remains as the last major trophy the club have won - but who knows what the next seven months hold for the men from Berkshire!!
PETERBOROUGH Panthers may have won last season's Elite League Championship Play-Off Final against the Bulldogs, but they haven't always come out on top when the two teams have met in a Cup Final.
