How Luton Town FC inched closer to Premier League status

LUTON, England — Oak Road has become an unusual tourist attraction. Look him up on Instagram and you’ll see a range of photographs that define how so many English football clubs have taken root in their communities for over a century. They also illustrate the fairy tale story of Luton Town FC, a club that is one match away from the Premier leaguejust nine years after “doing a Wrexham” and winning promotion from the National League.

If Luton defeat Coventry City in the EFL Championship play-off final on Saturday (billed as a £180m football game due to the financial rewards of being in the Premier League), the Hatters will have made the journey. from non-league to Premier. League in less than a decade.

To you, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.

– Watch LIVE: Luton vs. Coventry, Sat. 5/27, 11:40 a.m. ET, ESPN+

But nothing crystallises Luton’s history quite like the Oak Stand on Kenilworth Road, the club’s small 10,356-capacity stadium, which welcomed supporters of Braintree Town and Welling United less than 10 years ago. Next season, fans of manchester united, Liverpool and Arsenal he could be making the same journey through turnstiles wedged between 99 and 103 Oak Road and then up a metal stairway through the back gardens of houses on the street.

“It annoys me and makes me laugh when you get the social media content about a far end passing through the gardens,” Luton chief executive Gary Sweet said. “It’s been like this since World War II or even before. Why is it rising now? Is it just because we could go to the Premier League?

“Erling HaalandHe’s not going to walk through that entrance: he’s going to walk through the other entrance that we have. Hug him. We have thick skins; it also shows that you don’t necessarily need a fancy setting to be successful.

“You can do all of that without having a beautiful stadium. It’s beautiful though. The old lady is beautiful.”

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Kenilworth Road is certainly different. If Luton is promoted, its stadium, opened in 1905, will be the smallest to host Premier League matches. The main stand is a jumbled patchwork of multicolored wooden seats and plastic benches, while the players’ tunnel is narrow enough to evoke memories of the days when opponents settled scores off the pitch, far from the public eye. prying eyes and cameras.

If Luton are promoted, they face a £10m summer upgrade list to ensure their stadium meets minimum Premier League standards – includes bigger changing rooms, new floodlights, better media/broadcast facilities , a VAR system and a completely new Stand to replace the enclosure in front of the Main Stand. Despite Luton gaining approval to build a new 17,500-seat stadium at nearby Power Court, the Premier League could be less than three months away; Kenilworth Road, which is 30 miles north of London, is getting a quick update.

“If anybody can do it, we can do it,” Sweet said. “We’ve got to pretty much rebuild a stand, but we’ll have gone from non-league to Premier League, so we can handle that little thing.”

Mick Harford has seen it all with Luton Town. The 64-year-old won two caps for England while playing for the club in the 1980s, when Luton established itself in the old First Division, playing on the day the team beat Arsenal at Wembley to win the EFL Cup in 1988. He was also in charge as manager as Luton completed their relegation from England’s top division (they were relegated in 1992, three months before the start of the Premier League) to out of the league with relegation to the National League in 2008 -09. after starting the season with a massive 30-point deduction imposed by the EFL and English FA for financial irregularities dating back several years.

That penalty, which condemned Luton to relegation, remains a raw wound among the club’s supporters, as evidenced by a banner: Luton Town, Est. 2008, FA Betrayed 2008, which still hangs in the main stand.

Harford, now Luton’s director of recruiting, admits the club have been on an incredible journey. “It’s been a roller coaster, especially for the fans,” Harford told ESPN. “When I first signed for Luton [in 1984], there was a locker room full of international players. It was a really good team and we could compete with Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool. We had a bit of a golden age.

“But after that, the players left, I left and came back, but all the players left. The club went through a chain of different owners, changed hands several times, and just went into a downward spiral. Then they went in in money trouble and I had points deducted, and as soon as you start deducting points it becomes difficult to attract players to your club.

“As we all know, it’s very, very difficult to get out of the National League. Look how long Wrexham have been down, and they’re a great club. Did I fear for the club? I think everyone does when they go down to that.” level.”

After four seasons of failing to escape the National League, Luton hired John Still as manager in 2013. Still had enjoyed a record of success at National League level going back over 20 years, having won promotion to the EFL with Maidstone United (1989) and Dagenham & Redbridge (2007), and his appointment proved to be the catalyst for Luton’s renaissance and rise.

“It’s a fantastic story, isn’t it?” I still told ESPN. “If someone wrote it, it wouldn’t be fact, it would be fiction.

“When I arrived, I felt that there was desperation among everyone and that the supporters put a lot of pressure on the players because they really felt that they should be a Football League club. The most important thing was to try to get everyone to sing to the same score, and to get the The fans really get behind the players, so I used to do something at the end of the game where I had a little meeting on the pitch and I used to get someone out of the crowd to come in, to get the fans involved and make them feel like they were involved. And we gradually turned it around.”

He still won promotion in his first season in charge, restoring Luton to the EFL. Promotion from League 2 (along with Coventry City) followed in 2018, with the team rising from League 1 at the first attempt in 2019. Three promotions in nine years, with a fourth potentially just 90 minutes away from Saturday.

Midfielder Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu has been on every promotion-winning team, and the 29-year-old will become the first player in history to play for the same club in the National League, League 2, League 1, Championship and Premier League. League if he helps guide Luton to the top flight. “It’s been an adventure,” Mpanzu said. “Not many people have, I think I’ll be the first, but it’s about having people believe in you.

“Did I want to come here when I left West Ham? Absolutely not! But Luton believed in me, gave me a chance and now we only have 90 minutes to go. We’ve come a long way from a training ground with dog walkers.” traversing our pitches and changing in portable cabins, but hopefully by 7pm on Saturday, we’ll be in the Premier League and drinking champagne.”

Luton have won just two of their first nine Championship games this season (Coventry got off to an even worse start, winning one and losing four of their first nine), but their form since early January, with two defeats in 21 games, buoyed them up. to the playoffs with a third place finish. USMNT goalie ethan horvath and 20-goal top scorer Carlton Morris have been key figures.

The departure of manager Nathan Jones to southampton in November could have ruined Luton’s prospects this season, but the appointment of Rob Edwards has turned out to be a coup. Edwards guided Forest Green Rovers to promotion from League 2 last season before moving to Luton’s traditional rivals Watford last summer. But after being sacked after just 11 games in charge there, Edwards is now on the brink of a second successive promotion, but this time to the Premier League.

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“It’s been a wild season for me, to say the least,” Edwards said. “I was hoping to get promoted at the beginning and it didn’t really work out at Watford. It’s a bit strange, it’s different.”

“People ask me about a winning formula, but these are good people. Anyone could have come and done what I did, it was quite easy actually. I’m lucky they picked me.”

Meanwhile, Luton thinks he’s hit the jackpot by hiring Edwards. “We couldn’t have had a better human being than Rob,” said CEO Sweet. “His image and personality of him are impeccable, and he reflects our image and personality. I think he’s actually a little better than us.”

The mutual appreciation between Edwards and Sweet is a reflection of Luton as a club. Those years in the lower leagues, struggling to escape the National League, seem to have forged a togetherness and family spirit that is rare at the highest level of the game. To further underline the community aspect of the club, a group of supporters started an online fundraiser this week, with the aim of raising £500 for staff at the Kenilworth Road ticket office to have a day off at Wembley on Saturday. On Thursday morning, the figure raised was over £5,000.

“There’s a lot of love here,” Edwards said. “It’s about more than just football, it’s about people’s lives. I’ve felt it and I feel like it’s been that way for a while. People will go to Wembley to win, and if we don’t, there will be devastation and a period”. mourning, but when you look at where we’ve been, things could be so much worse and we’re back.”

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If Luton pulls it off, Kenilworth Road will have its last dance in the Premier League. A memory from other times, but an experience that no player or fan will forget. “The stadium is brilliant,” Harford said. “When there are 10,000 people here, it seems like there are 60,000. It will be a sad day when we leave it, an absolutely sad day, but we will have to leave it one day, hopefully very soon.”

“If we can get into the Premier League, we’ll get money for a new stadium and that will give us a foundation for the next 20 or 25 years to get this club forward.”