How can a small team that has fallen into the amateur league rush to the Premier League?

With a small business and a rush to the Premier League, Luton Town has become a new miracle maker in English football. A century of hard work has given the club its unique charm, and down-to-earth is the basis for their approach to Wembley from Kenilwall. You don't know about the "Legion of Hats", but you must be eager to understand.

Eight years ago that autumn, this writer, who had just completed his coaching certificate in Bedfordshire, went to the training ground of Luton Town Football Club for the first time and encountered embarrassment on the way. At 5 p.m., on a country road with few street lights, I got lost.

The phone I was carrying with me was severely low on battery, and intuitively, I walked to a mountain road hidden in a residential area. In autumn England, at 3:30 p.m., I entered night mode, and I vaguely saw a large cemetery at the intersection where I couldn't see five fingers, and there was an animal wailing in my ears. I was too scared to take a step when a greeting came from behind me: "Man, I guess you're lost..."

Riding on this kind man's ride, I reached my destination. Later, I worked with him for a while. His name is Mike Halford and he is currently the assistant coach and director of football at Luton Town.

On 27 May, in the Championship play-off final, Luton Town was given his first chance to play in the Premier League thanks to a penalty shoot-out against Coventry. I immediately sent a text message to Halford after the game: "Long time no see, Mike! About 6 hours later, he replied, "Yuan, I guess what you're trying to say is 'long time no see, Luton'!" ”

Struggling in the mud

The town of Luton, in eastern Bedfordshire, was last "seen" in the 80s. It was a golden age for English football: Nottingham Forest in the East Midlands and Liverpool in the northwest dominated the Champions League, and Aston Villa in the West Midlands also reached the top of Europe. Without the Bosman Act, small-town clubs were often able to retain talent at a fraction of the cost, and Luton, with a population of only 180,000, reached its peak during that time: in the 1988 League Cup final, the "Hats" beat Arsenal 3-2 to lift the trophy.

The rapid urbanization of the 90s made small towns and their clubs gradually lose competitiveness, and this was evident in Luton and Nottingham Forest. Luton's last top-flight appearance was in 1991-92; Nottingham Forest caught up with the Premier League but suffered relegation in its first season.

For the last 31 years, Luton Town has been in the lower leagues. At the beginning of this century, the team's two consecutive promotions and return to the Championship gave hope of recovery, but 2006-07 was an important watershed moment in the club's development in recent years. That season, Luton Ton relied on the club's youth quality products and the "beads" of London's strong team to once rush into the top half of the Championship. Unexpectedly, in the middle of the season, the financial crisis suddenly broke out, and the team's fighting power took a sharp turn, and finally it was tragically relegated. Most of the main players changed their doors because the club could not pay their wages on time, and a young squad structure that was beginning to bear fruit fell apart.

The nightmare is far from over. In the 2007-08 season, Luton Town was deducted 10 points due to financial problems and fell another level into League Two; Before the start of the 2008–09 season, the club's financial problems worsened again, and the number of points deducted increased to 30.

No professional player wants to play for a club destined to relegate to an amateur league (and salary payment is a problem), and before the start of League Two in 2008-09, only eight players on Luton's registration book had signed professional contracts with the club, with the rest being "semi-professional" or "amateur". To this day, you can still find this banner in the stands at Luton's home stadium: "We were founded in 1885 and betrayed by the FA in 2008." ”

Playing in the fifth division with the debts left by his predecessor was the harsh reality that Luton Town faced in 2009-10. Of course, for a club that has gone bankrupt three times in nine years (to put it mildly, "administrative trusteeship"), such a situation will not make them feel overwhelmed. Since the Premier League was founded in 1992, 48 of the 92 professional football clubs have experienced bankruptcy protection, some more than once. If they were run as a business, these clubs would have disappeared a long time ago, and there will always be people who bring the clubs back to life in their own way out of emotion (rather than business logic), as was the case with Luton.

In 2007, shortly after Luton Town plummeted in the Championship, famous TV host Nick Owen led a number of local entrepreneurs, social groups and fan organizations to jointly fund the establishment of "Luton 2020 Limited" to revitalize the club. Among them, "2020" means to return to the Championship in 2020. Achieving goals is not a matter of slogans, but of rational operation. Once a good player is seen by a strong team, Luton will immediately collect money and release him, and then pick up the leaks from the transfer market to fill them. In order to save money, the top management disbanded some age groups of the youth team, and legend Halford also voluntarily terminated his contract with the club in his first season of relegation to the 5th level.

Savior, twist

Despite the strapped budget, Luton Town remains the biggest club in the Tier 5 division. It stands to reason that they should have been promoted back to the professional league the year after relegation, but this was not the case. None of the three managers allowed the "Hats" to cross the play-offs until the club welcomed a key figure - John Steele.

John Steele is no famous manager, and before Luton, the peak of his coaching career was only leading Maidstone United and Dagnham from Division 5 to Division 4. Steele's hand-in-hand with Luton Town is a two-way street: the "Hats" desperately need an experienced manager to help them break through the play-off bottleneck, and Steele sees "incredible potential" in Luton, so he is willing to relegate one level from the professional league and come to coach.

In Steele's view, the fundamental reason for Luton's failure to upgrade for four consecutive years is not technical tactics, but psychological stubbornness. He found that Luton, who had been in the amateur league for four seasons, still had a "superior" mentality, and the club always felt that "if we didn't take the lead in the first 20 minutes, the fans would start complaining, which would turn into insults against the players' incompetence." ”

So, soon after taking over the team, Steele invited fan leaders to the stadium and generously and patiently shared with them the club's development plans, as well as his technical and tactical ideas. At the same time, tell them that the club needs everyone's support. After that meeting, Luton players completely unloaded their psychological baggage and began to soar.

In 2013-14, Luton Town scored 101 points and scored 102 goals, and was promoted directly to League Two by 19 points ahead of second-placed Oxford United. And in just one season, John Steele laid the core tactical ideas of Luton in the following years: abandon the "little fast spirit" and resolutely use "black and hard"; Three central defenders at the back, the midfielder gives up possession, corners and set-pieces must be caught with success; When switching from defense to attack, the overall pressure is pressed and quickly forms a numerical advantage in the frontcourt. This tactic is ideal for operating in lower leagues, where the whole team starts from defense and requires less individual players. Bedford Today even believes that Steele is to Luton Town to something like Mourinho is to Chelsea.

Good luck "exchanged"

How to run a small team? British football writer Tom Watt summed up three elements: invest some money (without too much), piece together a super-executing squad, and hire a manager with simple tactical ideas and clear ideas. Everyone understands the truth, but the difficulty is that combining these three often requires some luck.

There is no shortage of success stories around Luton, and their arch-rival Watford did it in the 70s. At that time, "Bumblebee" was acquired by the famous musician Elton John, and under the leadership of "Long Pass Rushing Master" Graham Taylor, he rose 3 levels in a row. In the 80s, Wimbledon also climbed from amateur league to top league in almost the same way.

After returning to the professional league, Luton's financial situation has improved, coupled with the tactical foundation laid by Steele and the return of Halford, the team is on the verge of putting together the "three elements of success". Unfortunately, Steele's coaching ability could not break through the League Two, so the club decisively changed managers in the 2016-17 season, choosing a more capable leader - Nathan Jones.

Like most young coaches, Nathan Jones has an "immersive" way of working. He was hands-on with all the details of the club, and in order to delve into tactics and analyze videos, he could work 80 hours a week, "without seeing his wife and children". After a training session, Jones returned to his office to study the video, and after finding that the players' passing training was too sloppy, he immediately called everyone back and continued to practice.

Steele's core ideas, coupled with Nathan Jones' detailed tuning, allowed Luton, who had made up the "three elements of success", to be promoted to League One as a League Two runner-up. Although Luton Town was poached by Stoke City in the 2018-19 season and forced to send Nathan Jones away in the middle of the season, Halford led a team who had long been familiar with the "three elements of success" to the League One title as interim manager, completing the goal of returning to the Championship a year ahead of schedule.

In the 2019-20 season, Nathan Jones, who was sacked by Stoke City, returned to Luton, and at the press conference, the young manager almost burst into tears, reviewing his hasty departure and hoping to win the support and trust of his fans again. In terms of coaching ability, Jones really has nothing to say, returning to the end of the league, he led Luton Town to a thrilling relegation. Subsequently, in 2020-21, Luton Town ranked 12th in the Championship by virtue of the "League One team"; In 2021-22, Luton, who insisted on building a team with low salaries, broke into the promotion play-offs for the first time, but was unfortunately eliminated by Huddersfield.

Jones is the most indispensable of the "three elements of success" for clubs on a budget, so Luton signed a long-term contract with the Welshman during the winter break last year, hoping to "last for a long time". Unexpectedly, Jones jumped ship again this season and ran to Southampton in the Premier League to fight the fire before the World Cup. What happened next is clear to everyone: the "Saints" are difficult to return, helpless to be demoted, and Jones was fired before Valentine's Day.

On November 17 last year, Luton's top brass made an urgent decision to appoint "sworn enemy abandoner" Robert Edwards. He led Green Forest to promotion to League One last summer, and was then poached by Watford, but unfortunately he was fired at the end of September. At Kenilwald, the 40-year-old Edwards re-proved his coaching ability, building on the tactics of his predecessor to strengthen the defence and make Luton Town the second fewest goals conceded in the Championship (39). In the 3 play-offs, Edwards relied on practical strategy to achieve 1 win, 1 draw and 1 defeat, driving this "orange bus" to the Premier League in one fell swoop.

New challenges

Nathan Jones fled Luton twice and it was an inevitability. In the words of club CEO Gary Sweet, "Luton doesn't change easily", not only to describe the club, but also to allude to the local community.

The core structure of Luton Town has been preserved almost from the fifth level to this day: chairman David Wilkinson, CEO Gary Sweet, chief scout and assistant coach Halford, equipment manager Darren Cook, goalkeeping coach Kevin Deerden, and midfielder Pelly-Raddock Mpanzu (the first player to follow an English team from amateur league to top flight). The total value of Luton's first-team players this season is only £5.5 million, while the direct promotion of Burnley and Shefa United is £55.1 million and £97.38 million respectively, a tenfold or even twenty-fold difference. Not changing easily means falling behind, and falling behind means being beaten, and no one wants to suffer failure from the beginning.

Luton, located in the north of London and east of Bedfordshire, has been arbitrarily "joked" in recent years because of its lack of governance. "Look you're dirty, did you just go to Luton?" "Your house is leaking everywhere, so you should have bought it in Luton?"

There are three things in Luton that are frequently in the news: immigration, garbage dumps, and international airport service complaints. Luton is one of three non-white-majority cities in the UK (the other two being Leicester and Birmingham), and languages are in the air; Due to the neglect of municipal sanitation work, rats are rampant every summer, and they even attack the dogs; Luton International Airport, on the other hand, has long been blacklisted for travelers due to poor staff attitudes and cheap flights.

Luton Club is growing too fast and the city is not ready. The Kenilworth Thought Stadium, which opened in 1905, has only 10,356 seats and is located in a compact residential area, a low house made of red brick that has not been touched for decades. The caustic newspaper The Sun would even use the term "atavistic" to describe the dilapidated neighborhood surrounding the stadium. Another Luton fan quipped: "If Haaland wants to play next season, he must first go through my backyard. And every time Luton Town scores a goal at home, residents living around can clearly feel the teacups on the table moving.

According to the FA's mandatory rules on the conditions of the Premier League teams, it is urgent to renovate the Kenilworth Idea Stadium. A brand new bleacher had to be built within 75 days; The stadium should be equipped with at least 50 media seats and a press conference hall that can accommodate 70 people, and at least 15 TV commentary points should be set up on the sidelines, and the media broadcast area should be widened; More lighting should be installed in the stadium ceiling to improve the brightness of the lighting of night games.

The planning of a new stadium, which was stranded due to the coronavirus pandemic, has been advanced with Luton's success in this overtake. The club plans to move to the new Power Court around 2026, a new 23,000-capacity stadium in central Luton that will finance the construction of the new stadium with at least £170 million in proceeds over the next three seasons.

Lutonians must proactively adapt to these changes as this is the ticket to the Premier League. CEO Sweet said not long ago: "Since we have reached the top, we must treat this matter well." After all, promotion to the Premier League could be an important opportunity to change the fate of the club. ”

I haven't been back to Bedford in 7 years, but my daughter is very concerned about the town in the story that makes her dad lost. From the headline of Luton's promotion, the little one spelled out the word "Luton" and excitedly shouted: "I know this place, my dad got lost there, I want to go there and play football." "Lutonians are lucky because they own football and get the chance to change their fortunes through football. An ordinary and great story like Luton Town is the charm of the Premier League and even English football.

Author: Zhu Yuan

This article was originally published in Football Weekly Issue 868