Luton Town: from non-league to the brink of a Premier League fairytale

It is eight years since Luton Town returned to the Football League, a title-winning campaign under John Still in which they racked up 101 points and rattled in 102 goals culminating at Hyde, and a look at the direction of the travel of the two teams helps paint the picture of a quite extraordinary rise. Hyde have just finished 18th in the Northern Premier League Premier Division, the seventh tier, while Luton are two games from a Championship playoff final and three from discovering the glitz of the Premier League, 30 years on from last tasting the top flight.

The backbone of the club from those days in non-league remains, from the kit man, Darren Cook, to the goalkeeping coach, Kevin Dearden, the midfielder Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu, the legendary chief recruitment officer and assistant manager, Mick Harford, the chairman, David Wilkinson, and the chief executive, Gary Sweet. A series of financial setbacks saw the club deducted 10 points in 2007-08 and a record 30 points by the Football League the following season after entering administration for the third time in nine years.

The Championship was the aim when the club was bound for the fifth tier and the target spelled out in the name of the consortium that rescued the club: Luton Town 2020. They arrived at that destination a few months early, helped over the line by Harford after Nathan Jones, who returned as manager two years ago, left for Stoke. From that moment they have pushed to complete the set but they are way ahead of schedule.

Sweet acknowledges there is “a comedy factor” around the prospect of the creaking and charismatic Kenilworth Road hosting Premier League matches. If they were promoted, much of the off-season would be spent making their stadium compliant.