Not so long ago you were telling Kazenga LuaLua, in song, to “put the champagne on ice”. Yes, Luton got promoted twice, but on Saturday in Hull it was even more intoxicating than that.
It was arguably the most important piece of magic that he’s ever conjured in a Town shirt.
Game-changer? Not half. His winner at the KCOM Stadium could prove to be a £6million strike, such is the financial disparity between relegation and Championship survival.
More than money though, that out-of-the-blue brilliance needed only one thing to make it better. Well, around 5,000, actually. It deserved you.
It deserved you bouncing around, falling over the seat in front of you, hugging the person next to you and screaming a hole in the ozone layer above Hull. Is that even possible? I doubt it, but it would’ve sounded like the sky was caving in, and you just know that pandemonium would’ve been a beautiful sight.
I’ve written about it before on this website, but this run of games since the restart has really highlighted beyond all doubt that football without you just isn’t the same.
From the late Callum McManaman leveller against Preston that kick-started Luton after lockdown, to LuaLua’s blockbuster on Saturday, we’ve all witnessed moments in the last eight games that deserved to be drenched in pure, primal joy, bursting out from the terraces.
Big moments, big goals and even bigger celebrations are what we live for as match-going football fans, aren’t they? Viewing those moments on a screen is certainly no substitute.
Beggars can’t be choosers, but come 9:15pm tonight, from the comfort of your living room (or probably from behind the sofa), there’s little point in pretending otherwise that, if Luton can complete the Great Escape, it will be nothing short of miraculous. I fear for your ceilings, your soft furnishings and your neighbours. What carnage!
Surely, if you were offered a final day decider at the start of the season, you’d have taken it?
Certainly, the general consensus, at the start of the season, when I appeared on the Luton Town Supporters’ Trust podcast, was that if a man called Jones could keep the club in the Championship, it would be a greater achievement than all the record-breaking accolades they’ve managed in recent years.
Three months ago, I could never have envisaged that man would be Nathan Jones, but fair play to the board who took a calculated risk few of us could have seen happening.
But with promotion-chasing form of 1.625 points per game, you have to say that, come what may, making the new boss, the old boss, was a shrewd move.
Talk is cheap. Thankfully though, a picture is worth a thousand words. I’m sure you’ve them by now, but there were more than enough photos after LuaLua pulled a rabbit out of the hat show what has been achieved in these last two months.
Not somersaults, not Elliot Lee levitating or Harry Cornick’s ‘greyhound’ – but togetherness.
Better together, unfortunately, safer apart, as it is for all of you in these discombobulating times.
So, it is permutations at the ready for tonight, but if this team defy the pre-restart odds, take that LuaLua-chilled bottle of bubbly, pop the cork and toast the Town.
After the year we’ve had, you deserve it.
