Luton Town’s Return to the Premier League

Luton Town’s return to the Premier League is something which can only be described as a fairy tale. Just over 14 years ago the club found themselves in the Conference Premier for the first time in their history, having been relegated from League Two in the 2008-09 season on just 26 points. After many years of difficulty, the club will play in the Premier League for the first time ever.

The fall from the top

Luton Town’s fall from the top of the English game began in 1992 when they were relegated from the English Premiership just one season before the inaugural Premier League season. Following relegation from the Premiership, it wasn’t long until they found themselves down in the 3rd division. 4 years after their relegation from the top flight, the club sank to the 3rd tier of the English game. Instead of bouncing straight back up like many other clubs, they remained stagnant in the division until 2001, when they once again faced relegation – but this time to the 4th and lowest tier of the Football League pyramid.

Thankfully for the Hatters, under the guidance of manager Joe Kinnear, the club climbed back up to the 3rd tier at the first attempt. However, this is where things started to go pear-shaped at Kenilworth Road.

On May 20th 2003, the club was sold to John Gurney for a grand total of £4, with the previous owner keen to offload the club as it was costing him almost £500,000 per month in expenses.

Gurney sold the fans a dream upon his arrival into Luton with the owner keen to get fans onside and to cover any fees that come with owning a high-level football club. Gurney told the fans and the community that he would bring Formula One with its own purpose-built race track, as well as the fact he would build a 70,000-seater stadium which would net the club £50 million per year in profit. As expected, the plans never came to fruition and Kenilworth Road was left unchanged.

John Gurney’s arrival saw more than just false promises be made, Gurney took sporting action within 3 days of his arrival with the chairman sacking Kinnear as manager and replacing him with Mike Newell. Newell was at the helm of the Hatters for 196 games before later being sacked for questioning the owner’s lack of investment in the side. Ironically, when Newell was sacked by Gurney the club also entered administration – with Gurney ultimately realising he could no longer fund the club in the way which was promised or required.

The team was then relegated twice in a row as well as incurring many point deductions along the way before they were struck with the hammer blow of 30 points being taken from their 2008-09 total. This deduction saw the club relegated from the football league and enter the Conference Premier for the first time in their history.

The Rise to the Premier League

Following Luton Town’s relegation to the Conference Premier, they were reasonably successful, with the club often finding themselves finishing in the play-off places. However, despite play-off place finishes, Luton failed to win the play-offs on 3 separate occasions. It wasn’t until the 13/14 season, under the management of John Still, that Luton Town won the Conference Premier and their place back in the Football League. The side won the league by 101 points, 19 clear of second place Cambridge United.

The Hatters found themselves stagnant for a couple of years in League Two with the side not yet good enough to fight their way to the playoffs or to the league title. It wasn’t until the 16/17 season that the side secured themselves a playoff spot. Despite finishing 4th in the league they were unable to win the play-offs and were knocked out in the semi-final by Blackpool.

The following season the Hatters found a way to get themselves back up into League One, with manager Nathan Jones guiding the side to 88 points and, ultimately, to an automatic promotion place.

Impressively, the Hatters were able to secure back-to-back promotions as Nathan Jones guided his side to become League One champions and earn their place in the Championship following a 12-year absence.

The next couple of years would see the team push on for a play-off place but to no real avail. It wasn’t until 2021/22 that Luton Town were able to secure themselves a top 6 finish. Ultimately though, the top 6 finish resulted in nothing as they were beaten by Huddersfield in the semi-final.

However, the next season we would see a totally different and seemingly more mature Luton side. The Hatters went about their business well and could dismantle teams thanks to their unique high-pressing tactics. The Hatters started the season well under Nathan Jones until Southampton came calling and the Welsh manager departed the club for the 2nd time in nearly as many years. The Welshman was replaced by former Watford manager Rob Edwards. Edwards took the side from strength to strength and ensured Luton finished in the top 3 of the second division for the first time in their history.

The top 3 finish filled the side with confidence as they headed into the Championship play-off semi-final against Sunderland. The Hatters lost the first game 2-1 and would have it all to do in the return leg at Kenilworth Road. Thanks to impressive performances and goals from Tom Lockyer and Gabriel Osho the Hatters were able to win 2-0 to secure their place at Wembley for the final.

Should the Hatters want to make their return to the topflight they would have to go through Coventry City, who beat Middlesborough in the other semi-final.

Rob Edwards’s men started the game well and were creating chance after chance before Jordan Clark converted calmly in the 23rd minute to give Luton the lead. From there on it seemed the game could be headed for a cricket score, with the Hatters absolutely battering Coventry. However, Luton were unable to take their chances and headed in 1-0 up at the break.

In the second half, the momentum seemed to change with Coventry now creating all the chances, desperate to make Luton rue all their missed chances. Following the creation of various chances, Coventry drew level in the 66th minute thanks to a goal from Gustavo Hamer. Luton paid the price for their missed chances as the momentum of the game now swung Coventry’s way.

Following an intense last period of the game, the referee blew his whistle to mark the end of the 90 minutes and that we would now be in for another 30.

Following various attempts from both sides, no one really had any standout moments until the 117th minute when Luton put the ball in the net. A Coventry defensive error played the ball right into Taylor’s feet who buried the ball home cooly. However, VAR ruled the goal out thanks to a handball in the build-up. Coventry were let off, and Luton were devastated.

After 122 minutes of play, Michael Oliver finally blew his full-time whistle to confirm the fact that the play-off final was going to have to be settled via a penalty shootout.

As expected, the shootout was long and tense thanks to the hours of practice put in by both sides during the build-up to the game. The first 11 penalties were all converted cooly, with Fankaty Dabo up next to ensure that the shootout drags on even more. Dabo walked up to the box not looking entirely confident, he placed the ball on the spot and looked Horvath in the eyes. Following a deep breath to calm his nerves, Dabo began his run-up before striking the ball. Dabo had missed the target. The ball went soaring over the goal and into the end of 32,000 Luton Town fans whose 30 years of pent-up pain had now erupted into nothing but pure euphoria. Luton Town had returned to the pinnacle of English football for the first time since 1991.

They had done it. The fairy tale was now complete, and they could look forward to welcoming the likes of Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United to their beloved home that is Kenilworth Road.

30 years of disappointment, mismanagement and financial abuse led to the club returning to where they believe they belong. Even Hollywood would struggle to write a story more poetic than the fall and incredible return to the top of the pyramid.