Luton Town manager Jack Wilshere says rebuilding the connection between the club and its supporters was his “biggest target” after taking charge at Kenilworth Road.
The Hatters boss admitted he knew restoring belief among supporters would be just as important as improving results on the pitch after successive relegations had left morale damaged around the club.
While Town came up short in their bid for promotion – finishing one point off the play-offs – they lost just once in their final 17 games in all competitions, including a Vertu Trophy final triumph at Wembley and winning nine of their last 11 games, drawing the other two.
It was a remarkable run that, had they extended that across a full season would have been enough for automatic promotion. While Luton did not achieve that, it did begin to repair the relationship with fans.
Wilshere told the club’s YouTube channel: “When I first came to this club, I spoke about that connection and trying to rebuild that.
“I spoke about that in the media, but I also spoke about it most days with the players and how important that is that we turn that around. The only people that could turn that around was the players.
“The fans, I’m really, really grateful to them and I’m really excited for next year because of what we’ve created here and we’re going to need them again.”
Wilshere believes the atmosphere generated during the final weeks of the season showed exactly what the club can become when everyone is united. The 3-2 win over promotion hopefuls Bolton on the final day of the season, and the mutual appreciation after the game, was a stark contrast to the 5-0 defeat at Barnsley around a month into Wilshere’s reign at the back end of 2025.
“Ultimately the Barnsley game wasn’t good enough, so we expect that. We expect that the fans are going to be disappointed after results, after performances like that,” the manager said.
“But my message to them after the game was to stick with us and they did and that’s not always easy. I grew up a West Ham fan and West Ham got relegated and it broke my heart. I was angry. I was disappointed.
“This club has been relegated two years in a row and to have the support from the fans and the belief from the fans back was my biggest target coming in here.
“We had to turn the team around and how they perform, but we’re nothing without the connection with the fans.
“It feels like it’s back and we have to make sure that we keep that going because that’s on us to make sure we’re getting the results, we’re getting the performances and we keep giving the fans the belief.”
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