Luton Town F.C. - History

History

For more details on this topic, see History of Luton Town F.C. (1885–1970) and History of Luton Town F.C. (1970–present).

Luton Town Football Club was formed on 11 April 1885, the product of a merger of the two leading local teams, Luton Town Wanderers and Excelsior. Initially based at Excelsior's Dallow Lane ground, the club began making payments to certain individual players in 1890. The following year, Luton became the first club in southern England to be fully professional. The club was a founder member of the Southern Football League in the 1894–95 season and finished as runners-up in its first two seasons. It then left to help form the United League and came second in that league's inaugural season before joining The Football League for 1897–98, concurrently moving to a new ground at Dunstable Road. The club continued to enter a team to the United League for two more seasons, and won the title in 1897–98. Poor attendance, high wages, and the high travel and accommodation costs that resulted from Luton's distance from the northern heartlands of The Football League crippled the club financially, and made it too expensive to compete in that league. A return to the regionally organised Southern League was therefore arranged for the 1900–01 season.

Eight years after arriving at Dunstable Road, Luton moved again, settling at their current ground, Kenilworth Road, in 1905. Captain and left winger Bob Hawkes became Luton's first international player when he was picked to play for England against Ireland on 16 February 1907. A poor 1911–12 season saw Luton relegated to the Southern League's Second Division, but the club managed to win promotion back two years later. When war broke out, the schedule was reduced to a series of friendlies, but Luton took part in The London Combination for 1915–16. A key player of the period was Ernie Simms, a forward. Simms was wounded while serving in Italy in the First World War, but returned to score 40 goals during the following season.

The Luton side first played in the white and black colours which the club has retained for much of its history during the 1920–21 season, when they rejoined The Football League; until then, the players had worn sky blue shirts with white shorts and navy socks. Such was the quality of Luton's team at this time that despite playing in the third tier, a fixture between Ireland and England at Windsor Park on 22 October 1921 saw three Luton players on the pitch – Louis Bookman and Allan Mathieson for Ireland, and club top goalscorer Simms for England. However, after Luton finished fourth in the division, the squad was broken up as Simms, Bookman and Mathieson joined South Shields, Port Vale and Exeter City respectively. Luton stayed in the Third Division South until 1936–37, when the team finished top and won promotion to the Second Division, at that time the second tier of English football. During the promotion season, striker Joe Payne scored 55 goals in 39 games; during the previous season he had scored 10 in one match against Bristol Rovers, which remains a Football League record today.

During the early 1950s, one of Luton's greatest sides emerged under manager Dally Duncan. The team included Gordon Turner, who went on to become Luton's all-time top goalscorer, Bob Morton, who holds the record for the most club appearances, and Syd Owen, an England international. During this period, Luton sides also featured two England international goalkeepers, Ron Baynham and Bernard Streten, as well as Irish internationals Seamus Dunne, Tom Aherne and George Cummins. This team reached the top flight for the first time in 1955–56, after finishing the season in second place behind Birmingham City on goal average. A few years of success followed, including an FA Cup Final appearance against Nottingham Forest in 1958–59; at the end of the season, Owen was voted FWA Footballer of the Year. However, the club was relegated the following season, and, by 1964–65, was playing in the fourth tier.

In yo-yo club fashion, Luton were to return. A team including Bruce Rioch, John Moore and Graham French won the Fourth Division championship in 1967–68 under the leadership of former player Allan Brown; two years later Malcolm Macdonald's goals helped them to another promotion, while comedian Eric Morecambe became a director of the club. Luton Town won promotion back to the First Division in 1973–74, but were relegated the following season by a solitary point. Former player David Pleat was made manager in 1978, and by 1982–83 the team was back in the top flight. The team which Pleat assembled at Kenilworth Road was notable at the time for the number of black players it included; during an era when many English squads were almost entirely white, Luton often fielded a mostly black team. Talented players such as Ricky Hill, Brian Stein and Emeka Nwajiobi made key contributions to the club's success during this period, causing it to accrue "a richer history of black stars than any in the country", in the words of journalist Gavin Willacy.

On the last day of the 1982–83 season, the club's first back in the top tier, it narrowly escaped relegation: playing Manchester City at Maine Road, Luton needed to win to stay up, while City could escape with a draw. A late winner by Yugoslavian substitute Raddy Antić saved the team and prompted Pleat to dance across the pitch performing a "jig of joy", an image that has become iconic. The club achieved its highest ever league position, seventh, in 1986–87, and won the Football League Cup a year later with a 3–2 win over Arsenal. With ten minutes left on the clock and Arsenal 2–1 ahead, a penalty save from stand-in goalkeeper Andy Dibble sparked a late Luton rally: Danny Wilson equalised, before Brian Stein scored the winner with the last kick of the match. The club reached the League Cup Final once more in 1988–89, but lost 3–1 to Nottingham Forest.

The club was relegated from the top division at the end of the 1991–92 season, and sank to the third tier four years later. Luton stayed in the third-tier Second Division until relegation at the end of the 2000–01 season. Under the management of Joe Kinnear, who had arrived halfway through the previous season, the team won promotion from the fourth tier at the first attempt. "Controversial" owner John Gurney unsettled the club in 2003, terminating Kinnear's contract on his arrival in May; Gurney replaced Kinnear with Mike Newell before leaving Luton as the club entered administration. Newell's team finished as champions of the third-tier Football League One in 2004–05. While Newell's place was taken by first Kevin Blackwell and later former player Mick Harford, the team was then relegated twice in a row, starting in 2006–07, and spent the latter part of the 2007–08 season in administration, thus incurring a ten-point deduction from that season's total. The club then had a total of 30 points docked from its 2008–09 record by The Football Association and The Football League for various financial irregularities. These deductions proved to be too large an obstacle to overcome, but Luton came from behind in the final of the Football League Trophy to win the competition for the first time. Relegation meant that 2009–10 saw Luton playing in the Conference National, a competition which the club had never before contested, and in which, as of the 2012–13 season, they remain after three play-off defeats in three years.