Luton Town are preparing to make their Premier League debut and a new documentary looks at their incredible story of ups and downs, with CEO Gary Sweet admitting he’s still angry about the 30-point penalty that cast the club into the doldrums 15 years ago.
Thankfully, he last nine years have seen a remarkable and never-done-before rise from the non-league to the top table of the English game, that marks one of the most remarkable comeback tales in sport, let alone football.
But prior to that in 2008, Town were slapped with a 30-point penalty before a ball had been kicked that season, which effectively relegated the club out of the Football League after 89 years as a member.
Sweet had just led the 2020 consortium in a takeover following the club’s third administration in nine years, but the punishments meted out by the Football League and the Football Association were for the failings of previous regimes.
It took five years to recover and return to the Football League and the story has now taken them to the Premier League for the first time, which has been retold in a Sky Sports documentary called The Fall and Rise of Luton Town.
In the film, asked if there’s still a lot of anger towards the game’s authorities, Sweet said: “There’s anger within me. Every player that walks through the door gets told the story. People have to believe that, actually, we are still on that mission, and make sure that we show the authorities, that, by the way, we get on with really well now, and there are some really good people at the Football League and the FA.
“They know we have songs about them. They know the history, but they also know that what we are trying to do is to build a football club that can be really honoured for what we’ve come through.”
The chief executive adds of that low point 15 years ago: “Shell-shocked, we were. We thought we had a real, genuine case for the football authorities to look upon us, not just kindly, but fairly.
“We were a fan-owned organisation that put our money in. It all fell on deaf ears. It was felt that a football club needed to be punished badly to stop the rot of these administrations.
“I kind of got that but don’t pick on us. It should never have been one club. Whatever happens, it should always be a fair treatment. I still believe it was unfair.”
A new chapter in the Luton Town story will begin on Saturday August 12 when the Hatters kick off their debut Premier League campaign at Brighton and Hove Albion.
