Dan Potts says that Luton Town’s promotion through the play-offs is “sweeter” after “heartbreak” two previous times.
The defender is one of a handful of Hatters that have been at the club right through the Football League and booking a place in the Premier League is his third success with Town.
Potts scored the sudden death penalty that effectively won Luton the Championship play-off final against Coventry City, as when Fankaty Dabo missed after him the celebrations began.
It was the former West Ham man that won the toss and elected to have the penalty shootout in front of 36,000 Hatters fans at Wembley, where his team-mates all scored.
Though Potts has enjoyed automatic promotion twice with Town to go from League Two to the Championship, the club had never achieved the feat through the play-offs.
Six previous times they’d failed and for two of those, Potts didn’t feature last term in the semi-final defeat to Huddersfield, but was part of the team that were stunned with a last gasp Blackpool winner in the fourth-tier semi back in 2017.
The 29-year-old said: “It’s probably been even better this time because we’ve had heartbreak last year and I look all the way back in League Two when it happened as well.
“It does make it a little bit sweeter and everyone says it’s the best way of doing it and I think we agree.”
Only former West Ham youth team-mate Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu has been at Luton longer than Potts, but they both have played big parts in the club’s remarkable rise.
But asked if he ever thought Town would reach the top flight when he made the switch from the Hammers in 2015, he said: “You always try to have an end goal in life and whatever career you’re in, but it’s always important to take the steps in between. Thankfully, at this club it’s happened and those steps have been pretty quick. Premier League was a far cry from where we were at the time, but we’re here now.”
Luton are the only club to have ever gone from the non-league to the Premier League, which they’ve achieved in nine sensational years.
Potts said: “It’s a big, big achievement and once we all zoom out and look at what has actually happened, we’ll be super proud.”
The defender is currently with the rest of the squad in Las Vegas where they’re continuing their celebrations, but it was announced last week that Potts is one of three Hatters that have had their contracts extended, along with Elliot Thorpe and Gabriel Osho, who he replaced in the second half of extra-time.
And before heading Stateside, the players all went on an open-top bus victory parade through Luton, which the council estimated saw 20,000 fans fill the streets.
It was the biggest promotion party of the three that Potts has had the pleasure to be part of and he said: “It means the world. You see the people and how much it means to them, but for myself and I probably speak for everyone else who’s associated, it does mean the world.”
Potts has enjoyed something of a renaissance this season. Having only made 12 appearances last term, he was switched from his left back to centre back, making 28 outings this term and arguably would’ve made more but for injury to strike at the end of January.
The defender also scored Luton’s first goal of the season in a 1-1 draw at eventual champions Burnley, so it was quite fitting that he scored the club’s last goal of a history-making campaign, from the spot, with the captain’s armband on after the collapse of Tom Lockyer and the extra-time substitution of Mpanzu.
Potts said: “We’ve been diligent over the last couple of weeks, practising and doing everything we needed to have done for that to happen.
“We were all in the zone. All the lads that took penalties were brilliant. I had to check on my nan and grandad afterwards to make sure they were still alive, bless them.
“We were all confident, super confident taking a penalty. I said to the boys and the manager said, ‘no regrets. Pick your spot and stick with it.’
“It’s a horrible way (to lose) for Coventry and the poor lad that missed, but I’m super proud of the lads that took the penalties and I was happy for mine to hit the back of the net.”
