What a decade it has been for Luton Town Football Club. They spent the first half of it in the non-league, but have had three promotions in five years, become the first non-league team to beat a Premier League side in the FA Cup, set club records and have planning permission granted for a new stadium after 60 years of trying.
Here are my top 10 moments of the decade, with the caveat that they had to be moments I witnessed in person. Unfortunately, that means that I that didn’t get to see that famous cup giant-killing at Norwich, or the Conference title-winning campaign because, after Luton lost in the Conference play-off final to AFC Wimbledon, I went off to London to cover the Premier League between 2012-2014.
It was never as good as covering my home town team so I came back and it has been quite a ride. Here are my moments that have made it a decade to remember (well, eight years if you want to be pedantic), while covering Luton Town Football Club.
10. Thrashing Yeovil and Stevenage
I’ve put those early season League Two shellackings together because they were both ‘I was there’ moments (and so I can get away with squeezing them into one entry).
Stevenage had laboured under the pretensions, since the Conference days, that they were somehow a rival to Luton. Smashing them 7-1 emphatically put that to bed. But, before that, the 8-2 thwacking Town gave Yeovil was the highest League Two team score of the decade, which marked not only the start of the 20117/18 season, but also the arrival of James Collins.
His hat-trick was the first sign that Town had bought a lower league superstar. The striker has continued to smash expectations and to re-educate doubters. He’s still scoring in the Championship and this term became an international with the Republic of Ireland. Not bad for a bloke who supposedly couldn’t cut it in just about every division he’s played for Luton in!
9. Record breakers
It was the significance of last season’s 2-2 home draw with Blackpool that, more than anything, made it so special, but it was also the manner in which Town scrapped to a point to confirm the team of 2018/19 as history makers with a 28-game unbeaten record in one season. It was a topsy-turvy game in which James Collins scored early but then got sent off for a second bookable offence on the hour, which was immediately punished as Blackpool edged in front. At that stage, it looked like Luton would fall just short of the record. But then Jason Cummings popped up four minutes from time to equalise, make it 2-2, and ensure that the achievements of the team of 2018/19 may never be matched.
8. “IT’S INNNN! KEITH KEANE HAS SCORED DIRECT FROM A CORNER”
Last-gasp comeback victories are always special, but that one sticks in my mind for the outrageousness of Keith Keane’s 96th winner. Straight in the top bins from a corner. He got sent off (second yellow) for the barmy celebration scenes and fair play to him, I never thought I’d see another goal quite as outrageous at Kenilworth Road. I was wrong. It was also memorable for this Simon Pitts’ commentary. I can I can still hear him in my ear, screaming, “IT’S INNNNN! KEITH KEANE HAS SCORED DIRECT FROM A CORNER!”
7. Olly Lee scoring from a different postcode
There are long range blockbusters and then, once in a blue moon, there are goals scored from a different part of the town.
When Olly Lee took aim against Cambridge United, he wasn’t even in the centre circle of the Kenilworth Road end of Luton’s old home. When the ball then nestled into the next in the Oak Road end, 70 yards later, he’d scored a goal no-one would forget. And it turns out the two ends of the pitch are in different postcodes! Of course, there was a song that followed that exaggerated it even further, to claim Lee had scored from St Albans.
6. The League One title is sealed on final day of the season
The fact that last season’s promotion push managed to get down to the final game of the campaign – after Town went on a club record-breaking 28-game unbeaten streak – showed how strong the contest was with Barnsley, Charlton, Portsmouth and Sunderland all in the hunt.
Thankfully, Luton’s passage to the Championship was confirmed a few days earlier when Portsmouth slipped up against Peterborough, but there was still the title to win. And after losing out on the League Two crown to Accrington Stanley the previous season, Town needed to beat Oxford United to put the seal on a sensational season. It was a perfect start, with a third minute goal through George Moncur and the midfielder bagging his brace in the 73rd minute to make it 3-1.
It was an afternoon full of celebration, people on the pitch, the players celebrating in the directors’ box and the confirmation of a first ever back-to-back promotion for the club. The party that night, the hangover and the civic reception the following day. It was all perfect.
5. George Moncur’s knee slide against Portsmouth
The noise, the drama, the chaos and THAT celebration. All of this combined was the moment that I began to believe that Luton were on for promotion.
It was one of the great Kenilworth Road nights under the lights, for the sheer theatre and timing of Moncur’s free-kick, but also the significance. In fact, Mick Harford later admitted that it was also the moment he believed his Hatters side would get promoted.
The magic moment came at the end, but why not relive that special night’s match highlights?….
4. The first game back in the Championship
If the noise for the Moncur winner against Portsmouth was incredible, the decibel level for the game against Middlesbrough was ear-shreddingly exciting – one of those nights under the Kenilworth Road lights that I’ll never forget.
That’s because the sense that Luton were back where they belong was palpable, while they frequent chants of “Luton are back” confirmed it in song.
And the game was a thriller too, with Town falling behind and then getting back on terms with a collectors’ item screamer from Sonny Bradley after the skipper had gone all last season without scoring and then found the top corner.
Then to take the lead but get pegged back by a Simon Sluga howler – moments after a worldie save – Town needed a late James Collins equaliser to take a point.
Unfortunately, things haven’t quite hit those heights this season, though George Moncur’s winner against Wigan was equally dramatic, but just didn’t have the same sense of redemption that that opening game of the season did.
3. Newlands Park gets planning permission
I’d been in the council chamber to witness Power Court get planning approval in January and that was a special evening, but everything hung on the decision for Newlands Park, as it is needed to help fund Power Court.
Capital & Regional didn’t even turn up for the meeting, but Hatters chief executive Gary Sweet and 2020 Developments chief operating officer Michael Moran eviscerated their flimsy arguments. They did the town proud.
But it was the outpouring of emotion in that room once the councillors took their vote and it was confirmed that the planning permission was granted. It meant so much, not just for Luton Town Football Club, but the town. Make no mistake, it was an historic moment, every bit as important and exhilarating as last-gasp glory on the pitch. It was more than football and it the most important night of the decade without a shadow of a doubt.
Hopefully, we get more good news on Newlands Park in the coming days with the deadline for Capital & Regional to appeal after their judicial review application was thrown out by High Court judges.
2. The Luton wall of noise at Notts County
Occasionally, events transpire inside football grounds that are more memorable than any match action. With promotion already in the bag on the final day of the League Two season, there was little to play for, for Luton. As it turned out it was one of the most action-packed scoreless draws you could hope to witness but, far more than that, was the entire side of Meadow Lane packed to the rafters with 5,000 delirious Hatters.
Delirious barely even covers it. I had the pleasure of sitting the press box on the other side of the ground so I got the full spine-tingling widescreen experience. Even if it was just that wall of noise for 90 minutes, they were sights and sounds I’ll never forgot, but the scenes at the end of the match when Hatters players and staff stood arm-in-arm soaking it all in was one of the most emotional things I’ve ever see at the football. And the song was pretty good too, wasn’t it? At the time, I mean. It’s just a shame Whatshisname ruined it by running off to Stoke. But let’s not be revisionist about it, it made me proud to be a Lutonian. I’ve even got a lump in the throat writing this. Bloody hell, football, ay!
1. Redemption for Mick Harford
Big Mick Harford leading Luton to their first ever back-to-back promotion was special from the moment he stepped into the breach after Nathan Jones left, to the moment the final whistle rang out on the last game of the season, with Town crowned League One champions. There’s arguably not been a man in Hatters history more deserving and it was a real personal privilege to speak to him in the Kenilworth Road press room after the on-pitch celebrations of that afternoon, specifically to ask him one question. 11 years earlier, I’d stood in that same room after Town’s 89-year stay in the Football League had come to an end and I had to ask Mick questions in the post-match press conference. I don’t know what I asked. I can’t remember what he said, but the emotion of that afternoon was the lowest point in my football writing career.
So, the contrast with the emotion of Town confirming their return to the Championship was night and day. I asked him whether he could have imagined on that dark day that he’d been stood in the same spot a decade later celebrating success? The answer, as well as being typical humble and conciliatory, was, “You couldn’t write it. It’s an absolute dream come true for me to have some kind of redemption. To get this club into the Championship and the way we played it’s just fairytale stuff.”
History had come full circle. Here’s to the next 10 years.
I also was also part of the Luton Town Supporters’ Trust Podcast team which discussed our memorable moments of the decade. And we picked our combined Team of the Decade in the latest episode, which you can listen to here:
