Luton Town Football Club, commonly known as Luton Town or informally Luton, are an English association football team based in the town of Luton in Bedfordshire. They are nicknamed The Hatters due to the historical association of the town with the hat-making trade. The club compete in the Football League Two for the 2008-09 season. They are currently managed by Mick Harford, who was a playing legend at the club from 1984 to 1990, and then again from 1991 to 1992. Harford was appointed during the second half of the 2007-08 campaign. Luton Town won their first (and so far only) piece of major silverware in 1988, when they won the League Cup under the management of Ray Harford, beating Arsenal 3-2. Luton also reached the final the following year, but failed to regain their crown, losing 3-1 to Nottingham Forest. The two teams also met in the 1959 FA Cup Final, Luton Town's first appearance in a major final, with Nottingham Forest winning 2-1. Luton Town were the first professional club in southern England, making payments to players as early as 1890[1]. In 1936, Luton striker Joe Payne scored 10 goals in a single match which remains a football league record. The club are also known for having a series of financial catastrophes which have plagued its history, the controversial "plastic pitch" of the 1980s, a notorious incident involving rioting hooligans at a match against Millwall in 1985 and the subsequent ban on visiting supporters that lasted until 1991. Financial mismanagement has caused the club to enter administration three times in recent years. Luton's old and historic Kenilworth Road ground has caused the club to run at a loss for decades, and the club have been looking, unsuccessfully, for a new ground for much of that time. Luton are one of a relatively small number of teams to have played in all four divisions of the Football League. Rarer still is the fact that Luton have achieved this twice. Their most recent spell as a top division club was from 1982 to 1992. They then fell through the leagues and were relegated to the basement division in 2001. A brief rise to the renamed Football League Championship in 2005 proved a false start, and they were relegated twice in a row, for a third stint in the bottom division. The club is currently owned and run by the Luton Town Football Club 2020 consortium, fronted by Midlands Today presenter Nick Owen...
Well it's been a tough year for Luton, punished by the FA and the football league to the tune of a 30 point deduction. Luton seem doomed to relegation from the outset - as I type now, it will take a miracle to avoid the drop. What really hurts is that the points deductions just keep on occuring. Sent down last year because of a points deduction, theyve done it again. The true hypocrisy of this is that the FA and co rigorously enforce the rules and hand out uber-harsh punishments for the small clubs, whilst the big premiership sides get away with incredible things. Look at the punishments Chelsea and Man Utd never get for tapping up players (or any big clubs for that matter). Not to mention the debts they rack up...anyway ... Luton have sold 36, 000 tickets to April 5th trip to Wembley for the Johnstones paint trophy final. So the support is still there. Thats a line on the horizon, at the very least.
Good luck next Sunday, you Luton boys deserve something to cheer about this season because as you've already mentioned, relegation is now a distinct probability
2-1 win away to Morecambe yesterday. Clinging on the thinest of thin survival hopes still... Johnston's Paint Trophy final next weekend. Any Scunthorpe fans around on the site?
up the Hatters! I've actually seen you lot play on the telly here in the states! FA Cup a few years back.
ahh when I was living in the US a few years ago, there was a Luton game that I knew was being televised but I didn't get the channel (FSC maybe) and remember I spent an entire day trying to find a bar/pub/anywhere showing it. To no avail. I don't think that the heart of Texas was really soccer country, let alone Luton Town FC country...
"Let's go to Luton Town, Texas With Waylon, Willie and the boys..." - Waylon Jennngs.... [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiIXRAlUdQs"]YouTube - Waylon Jennings - Luckenbach Texas[/ame]
Luton Town 2 - 4 Rotherham United 11' 1 Reuben Reid 38' 2 Drewe Broughton 42' Chris Martin 1 - 2 53' 3 Danny Harrison 70' Asa Hall 2 87' 4 Mark Hudson
A tough defeat,and I wasn't at the game so can only comment on the highlights, but Luton's defending was shocking... still its the big one this sunday.
cheers, I won't get too self indulgent on you all, but wembley was a great day out today. 40,000 Luton fans just proving that no matter what the FA/Football league do to us, we're still there. On a footballing note, it was remarkable how equal Luton and Scunthorpe were for most of the game. You would not know there was a division, and half a table, between the sides. Great win by Luton, nail biting stuff all round, and I lost my voice towards the end. Great fun booing that moron 'Lord' Mahwinney too.
Luton Town 3 - 2 Scunthorpe United 14' 1 Gary Hooper 32' Chris Martin 1 70' Tom Craddock 2 88' 2 Grant McCann 95' Claude Gnakpa 3
Well, Luton 0 Chesterfield 0 at Kenilworth Road today. Result means Luton are relegated, though must of us have known this for a while, many just chose to live in denial for a while. What chance would any team have when starting the season needing 10 wins just to get to zero? In terms of the match today, it was a poor game. Very little to call between the sides. Luton tried playing with Parkin up front as a lone striker and it just didn't work. Both teams had chances, but it was a scrappy match, and not a great advert for Div 3 football. Still, maybe the exciting game at wembley raised the bar somewhat... Chesterfield looked ill eqipped for a play off push I thought. Don't know if they have any fans on these pages, but I was surprised as how poor they were for a side sitting in the play off places. Anyway, Luton will fight back. The red/blue/Tiannamen Square premier league awaits, and exciting trips to Oxford, Kettering etc.