Nathan Jones admits his first game back as Luton boss was a behind-closed-doors blessing – but that feeling only lasted for half and hour and now he’s preparing for his tenth straight Championship game in an empty stadium, praying it could be full of fans.
The trip to Oakwell tomorrow to face Barnsley will start Town’s 2020/21 league campaign, with a renewed sense of optimism, on the pitch at least, after the Welshman made a shock return last season and then guided the club to a final day of the season Great Escape.
But those heroics were tempered by the fact that 10,000 supporters could not be in Kenilworth Road to witness it and celebrate exuberantly, due to the global Coronavirus pandemic. It has not gone away.
For many, who will be forced to watch tomorrow’s curtain-raiser on TV’s, laptops or phones, the danger of dodgy wifi may be the only palpable pre-match atmosphere, where beer, banter and Bobbers buses once ruled.
Just as the relief of respite from relegation was an unfittingly anticlimactic affair, six weeks ago, the usual blindly buoyant this-year-could-be-our-year anticipation of a new campaign will be lacking somewhat from the socially distanced comfort of supporters’ sofas.
Jones and his players will have a job to focus on, of course, but the manager is only human.
“You can’t beat a full stadium and the atmosphere, the adrenaline, the momentum shifts that you get and things in games,” he says, adding of empty stands: “It does detract from the all-round ambience of football but we are in a real tough time so we do understand why that is and what we really hope is that people just be sensible in life and then, eventually, we will return back to a high degree of normality.
“But it’s not and it’s difficult because with the country in a bit of turmoil from COVID, people get let out and then suddenly they try to get back to normality quickly and then that has set us back, it has set a lot of people back.
“It sets leisure industries back, football industries, the arts and that is the thing. I’m not going to get too political, but it does detract from the overall atmosphere. I really hope we do get back to normal very, very soon but until the country gets back to normal then football won’t either.”
Less than 24 hours before Jones conducted the now familiar football sight of a pre-match press conference via Zoom videoconferencing, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his ‘Rule of Six’ stricter social distancing measures that, from Monday, will outlaw gatherings of seven or more people.
There’s a myriad of trademark confusing caveats, but what’s not difficult to comprehend is the threat this poses to the prospect of football fans returning to the terraces any time soon, as cases of infection hit 3,000 a day across the country.
The weekend before the Prime Minister made his televised pronouncement, a test event had taken place at League Two Cambridge United, which saw a limited 862 fans return to their seats, offering hope that it could soon start to be rolled out across other clubs.
But a second Cambridge event – which would’ve seen 2,000 fans allowed into The Abbey stadium for a match against Carlisle – has now been scrapped, and an October 1 date pencilled in that would’ve allowed stadia to be a third full now looks unlikely. With it, the diminishing chance that football clubs may have generated at least some match-day ticket revenue,
Where that leaves struggling EFL outfits, is now, once again, a significant concern, almost six months after supporters were shut out of stadia, while the Premier League and EFL estimate more than £150million could be lost across the top four English division, each month.
Jones says of football’s fan shutout: “I think it has gone on longer than anyone hoped already. No one could have envisaged on 1st September or October that we would be in the position we were.
“You couldn’t imagine but that is the world we live in and as I said, there is so many debates about how we over-panic and are we doing this and are we doing that. We have to be sensible as a nation, as people and adhere (to the guidelines) and if we do that, we will get back to some sort of normality quicker if we are sensible and that’s the only thing.
“You could never have envisaged what has gone on and the fear is if we don’t listen and don’t do stuff, then it will linger longer.”
And so, the wait goes on for Jones to stand once more before the Hatters fans who once adored him, then reviled him and, after his achievements last season, may be on the journey tentatively back to the former.
“Luton’s fans really are the lifeblood of everything,” says the manager, adding: “We’ve missed them. For probably half an hour of the first game it was probably easier for me to come back without fans, if I’m being brutally honest, because you never know what the reaction might have been.
“But I think now the water is under the bridge and I think now is the time we do move forward and with fans.
“We are a better club with fans in the stadium. The Kenny is the most wonderful place with a full house, and we have some real big games coming up that we can only pray our fans could be there for.”
It was only nine weeks ago that Luton last faced Barnsley when a late Tykes leveller and a squandered last-gasp chance from Town’s Harry Cornick had the players on their haunches at the final whistle, as a point apiece looked like the end of the world for both sides, as they stared into the abyss of relegation.
Remarkably, both secured their status on the final day, with arguably Barnsley’s survival an even greater act of escapology, considering their last three games were against promotion-chasing Leeds United, Nottingham Forest and Brentford. A 91st minute winner from Clarke Oduor saw them leapfrog Charlton out of the bottom three to safety.
Luton boss Jones says of tomorrow’s clash: “(It’s a) really tough game. Every time we play them, they have high energy, young, energetic side that can really make it difficult.
“They have fantastic energy; they have a good structure and I have the upmost respect for Barnsley. It was great to see that they did stay up because I actually watched them play in the FA Cup against Crewe and that was early January.
“You could see the impact the manager had on the squad and on the team and I really fancied them to get out of it. As it was, they took a bit of time to gather momentum but then they finished really, really strongly along with obviously Leeds, Wigan, Fulham those form teams and we were in that.
“It’s a real tough game to start with away at Oakwell, you’ve always got a tough game, last time we went there was my last defeat before I left (Luton) and it was a tough game.
“The two best sides in the league for me got promoted (from League One) that year and went ahead. A side that now I think do good work and it really will be a tough game.”
