Town stopper eyeing starting place against former club Posh
Mark Tyler says he will be doing his utmost to make sure he plays for the Hatters in their FA Cup second round tie at former club Peterborough United.
The 38-year-old played 485 games for Posh before joining the Hatters in 2009 and now the goalkeeper is hoping he can convince manager John Still – who gave Tyler his senior debut at London Road in 1994 – to play him when the two sides meet in the second round of the competition in early December.
“I want to play every game possible no matter what the competition,” Tyler told lutontown.co.uk. “We’ve got four games before that, though, and in that time I will be doing my absolute utmost to ensure the gaffer has got no choice but to play me.”
Tyler admitted he’s been dreaming of an FA Cup date with Peterborough ever since he left for Kenilworth Road in 2009.
“Whenever there’s been a cup draw I’ve always said I wanted to go back there,” said the Town number one. “You always want to go back to your previous clubs, especially to a place where you spent a large part of your career like I did at Peterborough.
“I was sitting on the sofa with my wife watching the draw – when Peterborough came out we said to each other ‘that would be nice’ – seconds later with both jumped off the sofa! My phone then went mental for about an hour.”
Tyler has already achieved success in the FA Cup against another boyhood club of his when he was part of the history-making Town side of 2013 that knocked out Norwich City of the competition to become the first non-league side to beat a Premier League club.
That was an emotional day for the Canary-supporting goalkeeper and Tyler is expecting a similar afternoon in three weeks’ time.
“I’m not the only player with a Peterborough connection but we will have to put the emotion to one side because we’ll have a job to do,” he says.
“It will be a great day for me and my family and it’ll be fantastic to go back and see all the familiar faces but we want to progress into the next round of the FA Cup.”