Huddersfield Town and Luton Town's fall and rise perfectly captured in simple three-word chant

Huddersfield Town were already doomed when they went to Selhurst Park in March 2019, but it was fitting that the ground that 18 months earlier had played host to their triumphant entry to the Premier League should also be the very ground where their relegation was mathematically confirmed.

The elation of that 3-0 victory in 2017 was a distant memory as Jan Siewert’s side laboured through a poor game of football before conceding two late goals that sealed a fate that had been coming for a long time. And yet all the noise was still coming from the Town fans, who danced and sang throughout with the determination of a band on a sinking ship. One song in particular captured the imagination: “Luton Town away…”

The meaning was understood by everyone. Luton went seven points clear at the top of League One by winning at Bristol Rovers that afternoon, putting them on course for their first season back in the second tier after 12 years away and a miserable five-year spell playing non-league football. Kenilworth Road was therefore about to be the further cry from Old Trafford and Anfield that the Championship had to offer.

The joke, of course, was on Huddersfield Town themselves; a bit of self-deprecating gallows humour from a set of fans who had had nothing to celebrate all season. Any disrespect towards Luton was a simple accident of timing and scansion. But even then, as bleak as things were on the stands in Croydon, those fans could not have anticipated just how much worse things were going to get.

That trip to Bedfordshire came early in the season – the last day of August – but it had already become apparent that the Terriers were set for another year of misery. Mark Hudson was in caretaker charge in the Huddersfield dugout,