Luton Town are one game from the Premier League, but whatever happens in the Championship play-off final, they’ve come a long way just to get to this juncture.
We’re one game away from the Premier League,” said Luton manager Rob Edwards after his team’s 2-0 win against Sunderland in their Championship play-off semi final. “That sounds surreal but we are. It’s a fact.” That’s one way of putting it, Rob. Last August, you were the manager of Luton’s bitterest rivals, plotting a quick return to the Premier League following their predictable relegation.
But it just so happened that these particular bitter rivals were Watford, so the managerial position there was on a strictly temporary basis, and when your temp contract came to an end at the end of September, you were at a bit of a loose end. But six weeks later, Luton supporters might have been attaching pictures of your face to dartboards for aiming practice just a few weeks earlier, had you been successful at Vicarage Road. Welcome to Kenilworth Road, Agent Edwards.
To say that Luton Town have had a rollercoaster ride since they were last in the top flight of English football would be something of an understatement. They were relegated from the First Division at the end of the last season before the Premier League was introduced in 1992 – indeed they were one of the clubs that voted for its very existence – but by 2002 they were in the fourth tier after two further relegations.
Luton Town won promotion from the Third Division – now League Two – at the first attempt in 2002, but the club’s fortunes on the pitch were very different to what was going on away from it. They were losing money hand over fist, and in May 2003 they were sold by former owner Mike Watson-Challis to a consortium fronted by a businessman with a patchy past called John Gurney for £4.
Gurney was only in charge of the club for 55 days, but it’s fair to say that he got a lot done. He suggested that the club might change its name to London-Luton FC or perhaps merge with Wimbledon, and build a Formula One track around a 70,000-capacity stadium, which would have a removable pitch supported over the top of the nearby M1 motorway on concrete rafters.
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