Luton Town

[BillyStubbsTears]

Christ, how good are they in the Conference this season?

Last three results have been 7-0, 5-0, 5-0.

Last 11 matches have been 10 wins and a draw. Scored 41, conceded 5.

Must be fun to watch.

[belton rover]

They have served their time, as we did. But their promotion back to the League won't nearly be as nerve tinglingly exciting as ours. Neither will their forseeable future.

[Sammy Chung was King]

I Can see Luton being strong enough to get a few promotions over the next few seasons,they are similar to us in that being in that league has done them good,clubs tend to be better run when they come out of that league,very hard league to get out of,when i was growing up,they were in the top league,what a drop

[roversdude]

Strange sort of club - Brabin was doing really well there then disappeared
One of the last real characters we had

[POD]

Always a top division club in the 1980's and won the League Cup by beating Arsenal at Wembley. 

Just shows what can happen if your club is not well run and able to live within its means.

[BobG]

And the unforgettable David Pleat dance when they escaped relegation one time on the last day of the season.

They had a pretty good top division side for a while too.

BobG

[pib]

They were briefly a very decent Championship side as well under Mike Newell. Then they lost most of their best players (Leon Barnett, Curtis Davies, Kevin Nicholls, Rowan Vine etc.) and the manager never saw any of the millions they'd made on them.

[IDM]

Was it our first season back in the 3rd division (2004/5) that Luton won that league by a country mile?  We had two draws 1-1 away and 3-3 at home.  I went to the away fixture, we played quite well and should have won.

[niteowler]

Correct me if I am wrong but seem to remember one of their biggest fans was Eric  Morecambe, must be looking down on them this year !

[Mr1Croft]

Their promotion push this season will have been helped by the 5000 STs they sold before the season, even for a old big club, its still a large fan base for any conference club.

[roversdude]

I believe you are right niteowler

[The Red Baron]

Correct me if I am wrong but seem to remember one of their biggest fans was Eric  Morecambe, must be looking down on them this year !

Comedian Eric Morecambe brought sunshine to the stands and terraces at Luton Town FC for many seasons in the 1970s and ‘80s, writes Geoff Cox.


It all started when the funnyman moved to Harpenden and his son Gary said he wanted to support a football team.

So they tossed a coin to decide whether it would be Luton or Watford. Hatters or Hornets?

The rest, as they say, is history.

Such was his commitment to the club, Eric was asked to join the board of directors at Kenilworth Road.

Shortly after his appointment, he briefly grew a rather sparse moustache.

He explained to his fans: “It’s a football moustache, eleven a side!”

Eric often told the story how once, when Luton were 2-0 down at half time, supporters chanted, “What do you think of it so far?” to which he replied, “Rubbish”.

Eric also made a point of featuring his club on the Morecambe & Wise TV shows, once holding a ‘Luton FC’ sign in a sketch with Glenda Jackson.

Eric died in 1984, agedonly 58, but his memory lives on at Luton Town’s stadium with the Eric Morecambe Suite.

http://www.lutontoday.co.uk/news/nostalgia/eric-morecambe-luton-town-fc-s-most-famous-fan-1-5830722

[Sammy Chung was King]

Always liked they're ground looks like it has it's own style when i've seen it on telly.

[Colin C No.3]

They were briefly a very decent Championship side as well under Mike Newell. Then they lost most of their best players (Leon Barnett, Curtis Davies, Kevin Nicholls, Rowan Vine etc.) and the manager never saw any of the millions they'd made on them.

Mike Newell!

One of THE worst strikers we ever invested' in....given his 'pedigree'?

[Filo]

They were briefly a very decent Championship side as well under Mike Newell. Then they lost most of their best players (Leon Barnett, Curtis Davies, Kevin Nicholls, Rowan Vine etc.) and the manager never saw any of the millions they'd made on them.

Mike Newell!

One of THE worst strikers we ever invested' in....given his 'pedigree'?

Justin Jackson and Carl Alford would have something to say about that

[The Red Baron]

Always liked they're ground looks like it has it's own style when i've seen it on telly.

Have you ever been there? It's a complete dump located in one of the grottiest areas I've ever seen. After a trip to Kenilworth Road you wouldn't use the phrase "it's grim up North" ever again.

[RedJ]

Their "hospitality boxes" look as though they're glorified portacabins built into the side of the ground.

[Filo]

Their "hospitality boxes" look as though they're glorified portacabins built into the side of the ground.

You mean like these

[RedJ]

I didn't say there was anything wrong with it!

[BillyStubbsTears]

I've only set foot in Luton once. 2006. Left the station to find an offie to get a couple of tinnies for a long late night train journey. I have never seen such a dystopian dump of a town in England ( and I'm from Denaby).

Many years ago, there used to be graffiti on a bridge over the M1 at Luton saying "Welcome to a Town Called Malice". Certain in 2006 it felt like a town moored in a 1970s swamp.

[RedRover45]

Been there four times. First time ground hopping to see them play WBA. Fighting in lumps all over the place. Second time v Villa when away fans were banned after Millwall 'renovated' the ground. Body searched amidst very high security. Cue, Villa scoring and large pockets of Villa fans celebrating all over the ground. Impressive security that day. Also seen Rovers play there twice and entered the away end through someone's back garden. Nice.
However, behind the ground is one of the finest chippy's I've ever visited and about a 100 yards away down an alleyway is a cracking boozer. However, this alleyway was christened Dogshit Alley, for reasons that are self explanatory.
Interesting place to say the least !

[The Red Baron]

Article in the Grauniad about Luton Town:

LUTON TOWN CLOSING IN ON ASCENSION DAY AFTER FIVE SEASONS IN PURGATORY
From The Guardian

Kenilworth Road, Tuesday: an evening when cold threatens to take residency
in cartilage. On Luton Town's reception desk, Lita Nunn is fielding calls
and reassuring questioners: tonight's Skrill Premier match against Wrexham
is not a sell-out - yet.

"I joined the club in 1985, during the glory days," she says. "I used to
give players their wages in brown packets. I thought Emeka Nwajiobi was
joking the first time he said his name." The club was such a family back
then, she adds, that the backroom staff had dinner at the Savoy with players
after Luton's greatest moment, the 3-2 Littlewoods Cup victory over Arsenal
in 1988.

And now? The old vibe is returning, she says. Everyone is happy. And with
good reason: the club are on the up - and going up.

Wrexham's players arrive. One carries a cardboard crate of Lucozade. Another
a beatbox that has seen better decades. Their caretaker manager, Billy Barr,
wishes everyone well. Later he will have little to smile about. From Luton's
first attack, Luke Guttridge steers a shot into the bottom corner before
uppercutting the sky as the crowd of 7526, Luton's third biggest of the
season, shout: "Easy! Easy!" Then the striker Andre Gray digs the ball out
of a sandy pothole, scampers into the penalty area and scores. Two-nil.

The match is eight minutes and five seconds old. And over.

It ends 5-0. Luton's last League defeat, 2-0 at Wrexham in September, has
been emphatically avenged. The Hatters are now unbeaten in 24 matches and 14
points clear of their nearest rivals in the Conference, Cambridge United.
They have scored 17 unanswered goals in three games, taking their goal
difference to +55. But it is the manner of their play - direct but not
lumpen, via ground rather than air, intricate despite the sticky surface -
that impresses as much as the score.

At the final whistle the corrugated iron in the main stand roof is pounded
by boot and fist. It is as if the West End production of Stomp has been
transported north. The supporters are boisterous, giddy: "That's why we are
the champions," they chant.

They are not there yet. Not officially. But it is only a matter of time.
Forget the cold: the fans can feel something else in their bones. The tingle
of their club emerging from the woes and blows of recent years.

Afterwards, Wrexham's caretaker-manager gives a glowing assessment. "Luton
are the best team I have seen in the Conference for many, many years," he
says, before telling the Guardian that he expects Luton to go up next season
too.

Luton's managing director, Gary Sweet, is aiming even higher. "If you look
at Swansea, Reading and Hull, I don't think any of them have the football
heritage and catchment area that Luton has," he says. "Our time will come.
We have always believed that. We will get promoted. And we'll get promoted
again. And then we'll get promoted again."

But this is Luton we are talking about. There is an early episode of The
Simpsons in which Homer attempts to leap over a canyon on a skateboard,
falls short, and thumps his head on every jagged edge on the way down. And
then, after being airlifted to an ambulance he falls out of the back and
down the cliff again. Over the past 15 years Luton have undergone what seems
like a similar experience.

In 2006-07 they were in the Championship play-off positions after 13 games,
before suffering three successive relegations. In the past 15 years they
have been through three administrations, 40 points worth of deductions,
faced 55 charges from the FA for systematic abuse of transfer regulations
and have owed the taxman GBP3.5m. Then there was John Gurney who, having
bought the club for GBP4 in 2003, tried to rename it London Luton and
introduced a "manager idol" phone vote for a new boss.

"But the lowest point was coming out of the FA offices in August 2008
knowing that we had a 30-point deduction and that we were going to get
relegated to the Conference the following May," Sweet says. "It knocked the
stuffing out of us. And this was shortly after we paid a few million to buy
the club just as the global economy was entering recession."

True, there has been the occasional giddy high - particularly last year's FA
Cup Fourth-Round victory at Norwich City and a Johnstone's Paint Trophy
success in 2009 - but what was expected to be briefest of sojourns in the
Conference has lasted five years. Three times they have missed out in the
play-offs.

A year ago this week, with the club facing another season in non-League
football, Luton dispensed with Paul Buckle and brought in John Still from
Dagenham & Redbridge. Still spent the last few months of the 2012-13 season
assessing his squad and then got rid of a dozen of them. He brought in old
hands, such as the 34-year-old Paul Benson, and fresh blood, such as the
20-year-old defensive midfielder Pelly Ruddock from West Ham United and
Norwich's FA Youth Cup-winning captain, Cameron McGeehan, on loan. There was
no more deadwood or driftwood. Still had a squad he could chisel and polish.

"He brought the right players in, not just those who want to come in for a
payday, and he never takes the foot off the gas," says Gray, the club's
leading scorer. "He has got us together as a team more. We're fitter than
ever before. He drills us very well. Pass and move, and it's evident in our
games."

Still, meanwhile, admits he wasn't sure whether to join Luton. "When they
approached me I spoke to some people about coming and they advised me not
to," he admits. "But there is a massive expectation here and that gave me a
buzz."

Some Luton fans believed they deserved promotion because of their size. "But
there is no divine right," says Still. "It's about hard work. Discipline.
Pattern of play. But the biggest thing we've done we've involved everyone in
the team. We're a team now, on and off the pitch. That is massive to what we
have done."

Change didn't occur overnight. Luton lost their first game of the season,
away at Southport, and bobbled along for the opening two months. But,
according to the club chairman, Nick Owen, there was a pivotal moment in
late September when a fan, who had been shouting abuse when the team were
1-0 down against Lincoln, was confronted by the captain, Ronnie Henry.
"After the game, which Luton won 3-2, Ronnie said: 'This can't go on: we are
all doing our best,'" explains Owen. "The fan came to see the players in
training. And it broke a spell of antagonism that had built up during all
these years of discontent. Now everyone is onside."

As if to prove Owen's point a couple of weeks later, Luton came from 3-1
down to beat Halifax 4-3 and move up to fifth. After every home game, when
the players huddle together on the pitch and Still dispenses a few words of
wisdom, a few lucky fans are invited to join in, emphasising the bond
between player and watcher.

On the entrance to the club shop there are images of the plastic fantastic
team of the 80s, including Steve Foster, Brian Stein, Danny Wilson and Ricky
Hill. Stein, who scored the winning goal at Wembley when Luton won the
League Cup, is liking what he sees from the new generation. "Something is
happening at this club," he says. "They lost the spirit for a bit and the
place was in turmoil for a while. But things are turning around."

In the longer term, Luton have plans to move to a new stadium - although, as
Owen ruefully recalls, even as far back as 1958 the Evening Standard was
announcing that Luton were planning the country's finest new ground - and 56
years on, after many schemes and dreams, the club are still stuck in
Kenilworth Road, that footballing Tardis, squeezed between rows of terraces
houses.

Yet Owen is not too despondent. "I know people say it's one of the worst
grounds in the country but for me it is a very special place, full of soul
and history and emotions," he says. "And after so many tough times it is
great to see it energised again."

A few years ago I saw Andre Gray, who is their leading scorer, knock in five for Hinckley against Solihull Moors. I've followed his career with interest ever since. I think he'll give a few League Two defences the runaround next season.

[Donnywolf]

Always liked they're ground looks like it has it's own style when i've seen it on telly.

Have you ever been there? It's a complete dump located in one of the grottiest areas I've ever seen. After a trip to Kenilworth Road you wouldn't use the phrase "it's grim up North" ever again.

Horrible place to visit (or was I should perhaps say)

Rovers had a special train to a game there complete with Players and Manager Lawrie Mc and we lost 4-0 or 4-1 with Malcolm MacDonald getting either 3 or all 4 goals

We were pursued all over the Town Centre by their fans intent on beating us up. The Ground is in a labyrinth of "claustrophobic" streets ideal for getting ambushed before or after the game

After the game we made it back to the Station where Rovers fans were on one Platform and their lot were on the opposite Platform. They decided to come round and smashed a door window to unlock the door and then charged the Rovers Fans. You had to run or hide - and as usual I hid - this time inside a Staff Room under a bench. Eventually order was restored - the Train came - the Players and Doncaster Belles ladies arrived and we went on our way

We had been hammered at Football and some physically too - the joys of being a footy fan eh ? The only bright spot is it was FA Cup day and I recall Man U leading Northampton 6-0 and a Mr G Best had scored all 6 ... and then Match abandoned !

Footnote .... Man U beat The Cobblers 2-8 on that day ... but no mention of it being called off ... my memory must be feeling its age !

[The Red Baron]

We had been hammered at Football and some physically too - the joys of being a footy fan eh ? The only bright spot is it was FA Cup day and I recall Man U leading Northampton 6-0 and a Mr G Best had scored all 6 ... and then Match abandoned !

Footnote .... Man U beat The Cobblers 2-8 on that day ... but no mention of it being called off ... my memory must be feeling its age !

It was Denis Law who scored six in a game that was abandoned. It was at Luton when Law was playing for Man City in 1961.

http://footballsite.co.uk/Statistics/Articles/DenisLaw6.htm

The game was replayed from scratch and Luton won! If anything even worse than our misfortunes with Charlton earlier this season.

Here's George scoring six for Man United at Northampton. Anyone recognise the home 'keeper?

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mgrdWxfrm8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mgrdWxfrm8</a>

PS: I'm not a United fan, but I am a George Best fan!

[Donnywolf]

Memory still makes me think Kim Book (without looking of course)

[Donnywolf]

Remember Lawrie Mc on Train home too

I had met him a few times as Rovers Managerwent on tour around Branches of Supporters Club. I went to a couple and bought him a Beer

On the train home he walked through the Train talking to we fans ... as he spotted me he said I only have one thing to say " don't be late for the next game"

[Donnywolf]

Here is Denis Laws BEST ever goal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8HQhV3ujyg

[The Red Baron]

Correct, it was Kim Book! That 69-70 season you refer to was my first as a Rovers fan. We were flying high in the old Division Three early on and we beat Luton 2-0 in front of 17,380 on 11th October. My first game was a few weeks later when we beat Bristol Rovers 3-1 (attendance 10,065).

However our form slumped after we lost to a last minute goal at home to Rotherham on Boxing Day (19,742) and that return game at Luton was during a run of only one win in 15 matches. We were in danger of relegation but won four out of the last seven and finished 11th. Luton were promoted in second behind Orient (they were plain "Orient" at that time).

For younger readers, a season very similar to 2010-11. And guess what, we were relegated the following year!

[hoolahoop]

Always a top division club in the 1980's and won the League Cup by beating Arsenal at Wembley. 

Just shows what can happen if your club is not well run and able to live within its means.

Also been Runners up in both the FA and League Cups. Jeez we struggle to get beyond the 3rd round  usually

[BobG]

Pitch and a half that isn't it?!

Haven't seen one like that since Forest Green left the Lawn.

BobG