With Peterborough United in town tomorrow night, it's time to find our where they're coming from.

Human settlement in the area dates back to before the Bronze Age, as can be seen at the Flag Fen archaeological site to the east of the current city centre. A museum at the site exhibits what is believed to be the oldest wheel in Britain

Peterborough Cathedral is one of the most intact large Norman churches in England and is renowned for its imposing early English Gothic West Front which, and Henry the Eighth’s first wife Katherine of Aragon is buried beneath its paving. It was ransacked in 1643 when Parliamentary soldiers took the city during the Civil War.

The opening of the Great Northern Railway's main line from London to York in 1850 transformed Peterborough from a market town to an industrial centre. Lord Exeter had opposed the railway passing through nearby Stamford, so Peterborough got a main line station instead and Stamford had to make do with being on the A1.

Coupled with vast local clay deposits, the railway enabled large-scale brick-making and distribution to take place. The area was the UK's leading producer of bricks for much of the twentieth century.

Peterborough was designated a New Town in 1967, to house some of London's overspill population in new townships around the existing urban area. Peterborough is currently experiencing an economic boom compared to the rest of the country, and with traditionally low levels of unemployment, Peterborough has been a popular destination for workers throughout the post-war period.

Peterborough is home to one of the largest concentrations of Italian immigrants in the UK. This is mainly as a result of labour recruitment in the 1950s by the London Brick Company in the southern Italian regions of Apulia and Campania. More recently the leader of the council said he believed Peterborough had taken up to 80% of the 65,000 people who had arrived in East Anglia from the Baltic states, and the East of England Regional Assembly estimated that 16,000 eastern Europeans were living in the city in 2006, one in ten of the population

Peterborough United was formed in 1934 at Peterborough's Angel Hotel to provide a replacement for Peterborough & Fletton United, who had folded two years previously, and have benefitted from the town’s growth. They were elected to the league in 1960 at the expense of Gateshead, and won the Fourth Division title at the first attempt, scoring a record 134 goals.

The Posh then spent seven seasons in the 3rd Division before being relegated, being deducted 19 points for illegal payments to players, a record which stood until Luton lost 30 points in one season five years ago. The club's highest finish position to date was tenth place in Division One, then the second tier of English football, in the 1992-93 season.

Although Peterborough is in Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire staged some home Cricket matches in the city between 1906 and 1974.

Peterborough is the largest town or city in the UK without any local radio of its own

Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, has a collection of some 227,000 objects, includingthe remains of Britain's oldest known murder victim.

Historical figures were born locally include Hereward the Wake, an outlaw who led resistance to the Norman Conquest, and Andy Bell of Eurasure. , while Ernie Wise lived in the city for many years,

Owing to its inland position, furthest from the landfall of most Atlantic depressions, Cambridgeshire is one of the driest counties in the UK, receiving, on average, around 600 mm (2 ft) of rain per year. Relative to the rest of the UK, the Peterborough area is sunnier than many places, with annual totals averaging nearly 1,600 hours a year.

Photo: Action Images via Reuters