THE BLUES
Never ever see a match after three and a half pints of Abbots Special Reserve, all 6.5% of it, it gives the game a very surreal quality, I even thought Gower had an outstanding game.
The two halves cliché has been overused but the defence which has looked OK since the loss of Richards and the return of Hammell, outside a mad half hour at Forest, lost concentration on several occasions in the first 45, fatally twice, against a limited side that should have been seen off on present form, more Graham Hick in Test mode than for his county!
However the second half was an improvement. Mark Gower did have an incredible match compared to recent form while
THE OPPOSITION
3 points from the last 12, including three draws in a row, have sent
THE MATCHES
Some history here and not all of it good! 65 matches in total; WON 19, LOST 30, DRAWN 16.
In fact, we are approaching the 100th anniversary of our first match against the Hatters in the FA Cup 5th round qualifying round, yes 5th, on December 19, 1908. We drew 1-1 and lost the replay 2-4! And so onto 1921 in the league, Feb. 12 to be exact, and another 1-1 draw, then 5 successive defeats, a 4-4 and 1-1 draw respectively, then, at last, on Dec. 20 1923, a 2-1 win, Johnson and Bissett the scorers. Only took us 16 years!
We suffered our biggest defeats during those early years, two 0-4's, on May 2 1921 and April 25 1925. A Sky covered 0-3 defeat in the Cup first round, Nov. 12 03, when
THE GROUND (I was going to leave this empty however………)
Their stadium is the 10,248 seater Kenilworth Road Stadium,
The club's owners at the time, the Watson-Challis', purchased land just off Junction 10 of the M1. Here they hoped to be able to build the Hatters new stadium. However, issues arose over the viability of the site after Luton Airport announced their plans to build a new runway. The current board of directors have now decided that this site is not viable, despite statements to the contrary by local authorities. However, the board have already located a new site, close to the villages of Harlington and Toddington, near Junction 12 of the M1, the board has declared an intention to build a 20,000 seater stadium alongside a large enabling development. But with this land being a green-belt site, many question whether planning permission will be given to such a large development, considering its close proximity to nearby villages which lie between but outside of the areas of green belt already identified for development on the borders of Luton and
On February 15, 2007,
The entrance to the Oak Road Stand must be one of the most unusual in the country. After going down a rather small alleyway at the side of the stadium (or down the cordoned off
THE CAR
Leave the M1 at Junction 11 and take the A505 towards
Please note that there is a residents only parking scheme in operation near to the ground, so you will have to park somewhat further away. There is also parking to be found in the Sainsbury's complex on the right after you have turned left from
THE TRAIN
THE PUB
The Bedfordshire Yeoman on
Two pubs near the rail station are the Coopers Arms in
THE HISTORY
In the mid 1980s the club became famous for instituting an "away fan ban", following a pitch invasion and hooliganism by Millwall fans, and for the introduction of an artificial playing surface in 1985. The ban and associated membership scheme was the idea of then chairman David Evans. This led to the club being expelled from the League Cup in the 1986-87 season as they refused to relax the ban in order to allow Cardiff City fans to attend the two-legged tie.
The most successful years in the history of Luton Town F.C were the 1980s, beginning with the already-mentioned promotion to the First Division in 1982. The club celebrated their proudest moment at
Harford inherited an impressive Luton squad including Les Sealey, Brian Stein, Danny Wilson, Ricky Hill, David Preece, Mal Donaghy and Mick Harford. They achieved a famous 3-2 victory over Arsenal in the League Cup final at Wembley. After
Harford was sacked less than two years later, in January 1990, with
Following the decision to ban artificial pitches in 1991, the club took out their artificial pitch, which had undoubtedly been an advantage to them at home matches.
Jim Ryan took over from Ray Harford as
Pleat remained in charge at Luton until the summer of 1995, when he moved to Sheffield Wednesday. His successor Terry Westley was sacked in December 1995, after just six months in charge, and Westley's successor Lennie Lawrence was unable to prevent Luton from finishing bottom of Division One and suffering relegation to Division Two, after losing top-scorer Dwight Marshall to a broken ankle in the relegation run-in.
Recently, the club was forced into administration after the failure to gain planning permission for the KohlerDome, a stadium for multi-purpose usage, and this led to many first-teamers leaving the club over the next few months. The club was pulled out of administration by director Cliff Bassett the day before the 1999-2000 season started.
Mike Watson-Challis then purchased the club in 2000, and
Kinnear got
The team next season had to deal with the loss of talented left-siders such as Matt Taylor and Jean-Louis Valois and they finished ninth in the 2002-03 Division Two campaign. In May 2003, the club was again taken over, this time by a John Gurney led consortium.
Days afterwards, manager Kinnear and his assistant Mick Harford, considered a legend to Hatters fans were both dismissed. This sparked a protest by
Gurney then proceeded to announce his plans for the club. These plans included building a stadium over the motorway, including a Formula 1 style race track, and changing the club's name to London Luton. Unsurprisingly, Luton fans were unimpressed, and they set up a supporters' group Trust in Luton. Gurney appointed ex-Luton striker Mike Newell as manager following a phone-vote, dubbed 'Manager Idol' by the media. The new owners were removed from power when TIL acquired shares in the club's major creditors, Hatters Holdings, and put an administrative receiver in charge.
After adding the likes of Paul Underwood, Marlon Beresford and Rowan Vine to the squad,
The 2005-06 season saw Luton starting as they finished the previous season by beating two of the relegated Premier Division teams, Crystal Palace and Southampton, in the first two games. They continued their excellent start with further victories over Preston and Norwich, both of which had been tipped for promotion, but
They began 2006 in the top of half of the Championship, three points off the playoff positions but in their first game of the new year they lost to local rivals Watford 2-1 at Kenilworth Road. Subsequent form was poor, though the highlight was beating high-flying Reading F.C. 3-2, and they finished the season outside the play-offs in 10th place, a feat few non-Luton fans believed was possible in August.
Trinidad & Tobago winger Carlos Edwards was sold to Sunderland for £1.5 million on the second day of the January transfer window. The winger was signed on a free and a £1.5 million profit was one manager Newell couldn't turn down. On January 11, 2007, Luton sold forward Rowan Vine for £2.5m to Birmingham. It is proposed that if
Newell sealed the return of Matthew Spring from Watford for £200,000 potentially rising to £300,000, and has also signed Drew Talbot from Sheffield Wednesday for a £250,000 fee. On the 30th Björn Runström arrived on loan from Fulham for a month. More signings were expected, however Newell had a number of bids turned down by players on transfer deadline day, leaving it too late to take any further action. And on March 2, 2007, Watford defender Clarke Carlisle joined on a month's loan, whilst Runstrom extended his own loan deal for a further month.
On March 27, Kevin Blackwell was announced as
Luton's relegation to League One was confirmed on April 20 in a 1-0 defeat away to Derby County, before they eventually finished 23rd in the league following Leeds United's descent into administration, resulting in a ten-point reduction.
The start of the season saw club captain Kevin Nicholls move to Leeds United for £700,000, and top scorer for the last five seasons Steve Howard move to Derby County for £1 million. Mike Newell assured supporters that replacements would be made with the funds generated, and Adam Boyd was signed for £500,000 from Hartlepool United soon after. Other players coming in to Luton in the pre-season include Richard Langley on a free transfer from QPR, Sam Parkin for £340,000 from Ipswich Town and Lewis Emanuel on a free transfer from Bradford City. On the 23rd of November goalkeeper Dean Kiely was signed on a month's loan from Portsmouth. This was later extended by one month to allow Kiely to stay until the end of January, but he has since joined West Brom.
Following a letter Newell sent to the board of directors on March 14, 2007 asking many questions of the board, one of which is believed to be an exact break-down of the finances made through the sales of 5 key first-team players amongst other questions. This letter followed up Newell's interview after the home defeat to Hull City on March 13, 2007 in which Newell criticized the lack of funds given to him following the player exodus and also told the surrounding journalists that they should be investigating what is happening at the club. On March 15, 2007 two directors from the board decided to sack Newell for gross misconduct following his comments. Following this, both Martin King and Liam Day, the supporters trust's representative, resigned from the board, feeling the process was undemocratic. Newell has hinted that he will challenge the decision. First-team coach Brian Stein was then appointed care-taker manager before Kevin Blackwell's appointment.
Following a spontaneous protest following Ipswich Town's second goal in their 2-0 victory at Kenilworth Road on March 17, 2007, in which Luton supporters sang 'Sack the board' and 'Where's the money gone', the board published a financial report on March 19, 2007. This report failed to specify income generated outside of player sales and showed how the player budget to spiral out of control, rising yearly despite the continual sale of the higher earners at the club. Following this confidential details from Newell's contract were alleged by board member Derek Peter, such as Newell receiving, what is stipulated as, 10% of the transfer fees. Some supporters see this as PR-spin.
On April 11, 2007 then-Chairman Bill Tomlins resigned following an investigation by the Football Association into irregular payments made by the Football Club's parent company J10. Tomlins resigned as a director of both companies also, and confirmed that illegal payments had been made to incoming player's agents. Following the speculation, David Pinkney was confirmed as the new Chairman of the club on April 13, 2007. It became official on June 15, 2007. Pinkney has aims of Premiership status in 5 years time and a new stadium to be built by 2010!an 50 charges in connection with alleged breaches of rules at
In addition, it has been alleged that services for the benefit of a
Sky Andrew, one of the six agents charged, was quick to play down the allegations. Andrew, who is agent to a number of Premiership stars including Sol Campbell, Jermaine Pennant and Jermain Defoe, told BBC Radio 5 Live: "People mustn't blow this out of proportion, there's no question that irregular payments were made to officials or anyone like that. "It's purely to do on our side with technical breaches on paperwork, which will come to light. We've spoken to the FA and the FA have conducted an investigation into dealings there - and it's only right they conduct their investigations and they've got rules in place and then they hand out charges to people. In our case it's just a technical breach of paperwork."
The charges follow an FA investigation after former
"Ultimately it vindicates me of the stance I made," Newell told BBC 5 Live. "I think as a manager of a football club, you have a duty to the supporters to make people aware of things like this. It was said over the last seven or eight months that there wasn't a time when I thought maybe it was the wrong thing to do because it's cost me my job. But ultimately this proves it was the right stance."
BBC Radio 5 Live sports news correspondent Gordon Farquhar pointed out that the FA's investigation had been triggered by Tomlins when he resigned in April after admitting making irregular payments to agents on three separate occasions. Farquhar said: "In a statement at the time, the club said Tomlins had approached the FA earlier in the year to clarify certain matters relating to the club. He also told the BBC he made the payments from the club's holding company but was at pains to point out that he made no private gain himself. He admitted he did the wrong thing at the time but also pointed out he contacted the FA personally to report what had gone wrong. It's also important to mention that the manager at the time Mike Newell made a number of allegations following his dismissal the month previous to Bill Tomlin's disappearance. And also another director, Martin King, resigned in the wake of the manager's departure, saying he was concerned with a number of issues and not just the one to sack Newell at the time."
(Thanks to the usual suspects in their help in creatine this article)