As stated in a previous article, Rovers and Peterborough United meet in the Carabao (League) Cup for the first time this Saturday.
However, they are no strangers to meeting each other in league games. The 45 league matches between the clubs following Peterborough’s election to the Football league in 1960 reveal that Rovers have won 11 of those games, 16 have been drawn and Peterborough have won 18. Rovers have scored 62 goals while Peterborough have found the back of the net 77 times.
Two of Rovers squad are in line to play against their former club on Saturday. Ryan De Havilland (below, left) and Jack Sparkes (above) played 50 and 21 league games respectively for The Posh, while another 26 players have also turned out for both clubs, including Harry Anderson, Paul Coutts, Scott McGlrish, Ollie Norburn and Worrell Sterling, not forgetting Tom Nichols who scored our last goal in the competition, back in 2019.
A total of 21 players have made their Rovers league debuts against the side who were our last league opponents at Twerton Park, from John Brown in 1963 through to Matt Butcher in 2025.
Peterborough boss Luke Williams has had an interesting and varied career since he was a Bristol Rovers trainee and the photo at the bottom of the page shows him as one of the 1997 intake, pictured with then manager Ian Holloway, while in the featured image he is on the front row, second from the left.
Back (L-R) – Guy Jones, Mike Adams, Ray Johnston, Bobby Zamora, Luke Williams
Front (L-R) – Dean Pendry, Ali Hines, Ian Holloway, Dave Watts, Mike Trought
Luke once classed Bobby Zamora as his good friend (it would be interesting to know if they still keep in touch!); both were from London, both joined Rovers at the same time and were in digs together at The Beeches.
Luke left Rovers after just a year and went on to play non league football and whilst playing for Ashford Town he sustained a horrific knee injury which was followed by three years of operations/rehab/physio.
He remained in touch with the game that had cost him his playing career and headed up an organisation that was a partnership between West Ham and the Metropolitan Police, using football to try to keep youngsters off the streets. From there he took a position as an FA Skills Coach and combined that with coaching at Leyton Orient.
His old friend Zamora put his name forward to the then Brighton boss Gus Poyet for the position as the club’s Development Coach and spent time as their U-21 coach. He later joined Swindon Town as assistant to manager Mark Cooper. There was a spell as manager at the County Ground following Cooper’s dismissal but in June 2017 he was on the move again, back to Bristol, as U-23 coach in Bristol City’s Academy.
He has always been regarded as an outstanding coach and following his time at Ashton Gate Luke assisted Russell Martin at MK Dons and Swansea City before taking on the job as manager of Notts County. He returned to Swansea as their manager in January 2024 and took over at Peterborough last November.
Between leaving Swansea and starting at Peterborough, he took on a customer care role at Bristol Airport, assisting disabled and limited mobility passengers, driven by his own personal work ethic rather than financial need. Of his time working at there he said; ‘I wanted to go and work and do something meaningful with my time. I am in a very fortunate position where I have some time.
‘I spoke to a guy in recruitment and he said, ‘look, the airport this year is going to be crazy busy, a lot of energy’, and that ‘it is a completely different industry that is going to have many issues that are going to be relatable to the rigours of managing a football club’. And so I said, ‘OK, let me see if I can do this’ and it’s been brilliant.’
