Oxford United are heading to Wembley

Cameron Brannagan’s penalty earned Oxford a place in the League One play-off final as they drew 1-1 at Peterborough to progress to Wembley 2-1 on aggregate.

The U’s followed up their 1-0 first-leg triumph last Saturday to hold on for a draw in a pulsating second leg and set up a showdown with Bolton on May 18.

Penalty king Brannagan made no mistake from the spot in first-half stoppage time after Des Buckingham’s side had briefly fallen behind to a Josh Knight goal – and that is the way it stayed despite Posh piling on the pressure to no avail in the second half.

U's manager Des Buckingham cannot wait to lead his hometown club Oxford out at Wembley.

The 39-year-old boss played for the club as a youngster and cut his teeth in coaching in their youth section before heading off to New Zealand, Australia and India to launch his managerial career.

Buckingham returned in November after Liam Manning left for Sky Bet Championship club Bristol City – and now Oxford are one game away from the second tier themselves.

He said: “It will be without doubt the proudest moment of my life to lead my hometown club out at Wembley in my first season here.

“We’ve had some tough moments along the way, but people have stuck together so strongly and this is fantastic for everyone associated with the football club.

“I can’t wait now to try to go one step further and reach the Championship. What a wonderful experience it will be.

“We know we will sell out or allocation, no doubt. If we can replicate the atmosphere we had with 12,000 people at the Kassam with 35-40,000 at Wembley, it will be unbelievable.

“We knew coming here would be tough as Peterborough are an excellent team with some wonderful players.

“They were the highest goalscorers in the league for a reason. We knew we would have to weather a storm, but we didn’t plan on having to weather it for quite as long as we did!

“But the players showed a really good desire to defend what we had.”