I was reading about The Falling Man recently, an iconic photo of a suited man falling head first to his death following the 9/11 attacks. In a split second he appears completely at ease and calm despite the horror he’s just witnessed and the inevitability to come.

One psychologist speculated that, in that moment, rather than a sense of terror, he may have felt euphoric, completely free, controlled by nothing more than gravity. Our lives are determined by so many things that give us very little agency or certainly about what might happen to us, perversely, in his final moments, The Falling Man was in complete control, absolutely assured about was coming next.

On Friday, I had a sense of fatalistic giddiness, the outcome of our week was beyond my control. I was happy to hand myself over to fate. The meaning of success or failure was less relevant than the prospect of catapulting into a week without fear. I hadn’t contemplated a near miss or complete capitulation, but even those prospects made me excited for what was ahead.

Walking to the ground was surreal, there was a man in a fluorescent singlet and matching headband in Gillians Park loudly playing Eastern European soft rock through a Bluetooth speaker while he pumped iron on the outdoor gym. Then a child went past in a small electric car being driven by his dad using a remote control. Something had changed, the world had become lopsided.

Peterborough fans arrived in good numbers and good voice, fresh from their Wembley win and a regulation thrashing of Port Vale. There’s something ominous about them – their manager Darren Ferguson has an association with the club going back seventeen years, their owner Darragh MacAnthony has been chairman for eighteen. They’ve won four promotions and two EFL Trophies. They’ve spent thirteen of the last sixteen seasons in the third tier. They are the quintessential third division assuredness. Unrelentingly solid. They are very much second toughest in the infants.

The teams stepped into sunlight, balloons cascaded from the East Stand, streamers and flags fluttered in the light wind. The stand was alive with movement. It looked good, it felt good. The season had been so grey and introspective, suddenly we’d raised our sights to the prospect of something more worthy than feeding our own self-pity. For once, we’d grasped the occasion. This time, we seemed to get it.

While we suffered the body blows of losing Cameron Brannagan and Elliott Moore, Peterborough stepped onto the field wearing a kit which Brinyhoof described as ‘someone’s left a red pair of pants in the white wash pink’. It wasn’t the pink, it was the washed out shade, the lack of commitment, their sturdy reliable DNA, nearly twenty years in the making, seemed somehow weakened.

Even their kick-off seemed slow, playing along their backline at a snail’s pace, a familiar pattern, ‘modern football’ I sighed quietly. Mark Harris traced the ball like an old man keeping an eye on some noisy kids, checking they weren’t dropping vapes in his garden. Perhaps they were trying to establish some control, but they seemed unwilling, or unable to stamp their authority.

Perhaps they thought they’d play through us; bypassing Josh McEachran and pressing on our shaky defensive line. Maybe they thought they could strike at will. Maybe they’d failed to see the real threat in the plainest of sight.

But McEachran stood strong, he was the platform, intensely metronomic, simple and straight forward. He wasn’t Brannagan, there would be no balls sprayed across the midfield. He would do the right things all the time. And in doing so, he unleashed hell.

Josh Murphy’s form was hardly a secret, on Friday he featured in The Mirror talking about his rejuvenation. Goals, chances and assists have come like a tidal wave in recent weeks. It wasn’t long before he was introducing Jadal Katongo to what a night in Murphy Town was really about. It’s not just his raw pace, as devastating as that is on its own, it’s his reaction speed and acceleration. I’ve only seen that in a few players at The Kassam, and they were wearing Manchester City and Arsenal shirts. He’d show the ball to Katongo, entice him into challenge, but as the defender committed, skip past him whippet quick. If Katongo sat back, he’d would simply run at him forcing him to retreat. Unplayable is over-used in football, but that’s what he was.

After a few minutes, Des Buckingham switched Murphy and Dale Owen over – an old Jim Smith trick – after a renewed battering he switched them back, Katongo and Harrison Burrows, the other full-back and Wembley hero, were probably looking at the scoreboard wondering why time had stood still. We hadn’t reached twenty minutes.

Eventually Katongo succumbed, swinging in with a panicked challenge to bring Murphy to the floor in the box. His protests seemed to be less about the legality of the challenge, more that it just wasn’t fair to have a player of that ability in League One. Harris made it 1-0. 

Ten minutes later, their brittle confidence crumbled to dust, eroding like a sandcastle at high tide. Apparently, when you see something, your brain captures the information in front of you and sketches out what you’re seeing, your brain then fills in the details with logical fragments from your memory bank to make a fully formed picture.

So, when the Peterborough defence, casually played the ball along their backline under almost no pressure before their keeper delicately chipped the ball to Murphy to head into an empty net, my brain couldn’t calculate what had happened. I had no stored memory of that pattern of play, even moments after it had happened, I couldn’t describe it to you. 

Seven minutes later, we were off again, Goodrham accelerating out of defence and rolling the ball into the path of Murphy to run at Kotongo, there was only one outcome as Rodrigues slid home the cross. For forty-five minutes, Murphy had been devastating, completing his journey of redemption – ‘the best player in League 1’ – a typical Robinsonian understatement – was the best player in League 1 and maybe beyond that. He didn’t need his talent bullied out of him by Robinson, or frozen out of him by Manning, he needed something more subtle. Jason Burt, Chief Football Correspondent at the Telegraph, and closet Oxford United fan, described it as one of the best performances he’d ever seen. Ever. By any footballer. Ever. Ferguson replaced Kotongo at half-time, presumably to protect his wellbeing.

I knowingly predicted a fightback in the second-half, or at least a tightening of the game, but we’d pierced into the very soul of Peterborough’s DNA, a DNA years in the making, a DNA which has them comfortably sitting fourth in the table, a week after they’d won at Wembley. They were carrion on the highway, we could play with them.

This was showtime, fluid, elegant and coherent, we grabbed the occasion, doubled down on our advantages, built on our gains. Roared on by a feverish crowd, Fin Stevens’ driven cross was met by Rodrigues with a diving header for number four, like Keith Houchen in the 1987 FA Cup Final. Not yet sated and into the last minute, Greg Leigh launched a long free-kick into the path of Billy Bodin, a quieter more disciplined member of the squad. The sensible thing would have been to go to the corner flag; that’s professional, that’s game management. But that was not this day, he steered the ball wide beyond the demoralised Peterborough backline and directed the fifth into the top right hand corner, a breathtaking finale and a carbon copy of Michael Owen’s goal against Argentina in 1998. It was like we were channelling the history of football.

Despite the worrying injuries and cramps, James Henry breaking down within a couple of minutes of coming on and appearing distraught, euphoria swarmed around a stadium which only weeks ago seemed lifeless and limp. The club re-galvanised after a period of tepidness and turmoil. The best ever performance at the Kassam? Probably. Our best league performance ever? Yes, maybe even that too.