Gary Sweet is practised at helping to save Luton Town from the brink of oblivion, but the club’s chief executive admits that the Coronavirus crisis is ‘more grave’ than the two other times he’s helped rescue the club.
Back in 2003 he was a fan who helped wrestle the Hatters away from the hands of controversial former owner John Gurney, after 55 days in charge.
As a founding member of the supporters’ trust – then named Trust in Luton – Sweet was part of the effort to organise a season ticket boycott, which stopped money going into the hands of Gurney. They then deliberately forced the club into administrative receivership, to wrest the club away from Gurney’s control.
Five years later, then owner David Pinkney placed the club into administration again. A John Arne Riise own goal earned the Hatters an FA Cup replay with Premier League Liverpool, to stave off extinction at the 11th hour. That reprieve gave the club the funds to stay afloat for long enough for the 2020 consortium, with Sweet at the helm, to become the preferred bidder, which was announced on the day of the Anfield clash.
But after taking over the club, the Football League and the Football Association slapped Luton with the infamous 30-point penalty for a third administration in nine years, effectively expelling them from the Football League after 89 years before a ball had been kicked.
The 2020 Board have since achieved their goal of returning Town to the Championship this year.
Generally considered prudent and well-respected stewards of the club, 2020 were on course to make a small profit this term until March when a global pandemic forced a shutdown and threw football into its current chaos.
Sweet has previously said that the Coronavirus pandemic will put some clubs out of business, and asked how his experiences of helping to save the club compared to the present crisis, Sweet said: “It’s more grave than previous times, and I did only help, but it is more grave now than it was back then on both of those occasions.
“The bottom line is, if you go back to both of those periods – 2003 and 2007/08 – at the end of the day, if we weren’t there back then, somebody would have bought the club. Right now, there is not really a queue of people willing to buy football clubs, unsurprisingly.
“So we are in a very precarious situation and if it wasn’t for our supporters, executive members, sponsors who have stuck by us at this time, it’d be much more precarious and it’s those guys who are keeping us going at the moment.
“Those who are still willing to buy season tickets and executive packages for next season, and stuck by us as sponsors going forward. It’s all of those people who matter so much to us because, ultimately, it’s their club and the fact that we own it is irrelevant really.
“At the end of the day, it’s their club for them to enjoy, and they are not able to enjoy it yet, but they are still giving us their money in tough times and without that it would be a really, really difficult situation.”
