Luton Town, the beginning and the end

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Hello everybody, welcome back to this new episode of Luton Town! Last time we met Luton was at the top of the Blue Square Premier, with some points in hand on Cambridge. We remained unbeaten, although we did drop some points in the last month. We were well-organised, conceded just a few goals so our promotion chances were great. Surely, we were favourite to get that promotion place. But just a promotion won’t be enough for us, it was the championship we were after.

Let’s start with the table of 23 October. Last time I forgot to post the table, so here it is. This is the situation before dropping points at home against Rushden. Cambridge won their game so we were 5 points clear, with 18 games played, 15 won, 3 draws and no losses.

I’ll fast-forward the season. We kept our unbeaten string of result for a long time, but nothing last forever. We lost the first game against Gateshead away. We were unbeaten until the 23 of January! Many games were won by only a one-goal lead, because of our defensive style. Ebbsfleet and Rushden were the only two other teams who beats us in the league. We only got 1 point from Rushden all together.

We were crowned champion of the Blue Square Premier halfway March, with 113 points. Our nemesis of the Blue Square Premier, Cambridge United, became second with 106 points. The sub top was Oxford, Wrexham, Histon and York and finished a long length behind the top two.

We competed in FA cup and the FA Trophy. We reached the 3th round of the FA cup. We left the competition after losing 2-0 to Bolton, we were completely helpless. We ended the season with the final of the FA Trophy on Wembley against Histon. We got there by an easy road: Tamworth, Bath and Alfreton in the semi’s. We won the FA Trophy by 2-1!!
 
To illustrate the end result even better, we only conceded 18 goals! The main reason for that fact is our tactic.

Team of the Year:

In my opinion the stars of this team are Nordin Wooter, Lucien Mettomo and Jose Baxter. All three players were brought in the club after the summer and the main reason I’m favourite to point them out as best players is their reliability. In my opinion the best players never have a average of lower then 7.0. Wooter is a multifunctional player who I can use on all four  midfield positions, that’s a big help with a small squad. Mettomo already got my praise in the Augustus story, he is a good defender and a strong header. He also scored the great average, 7.27. Baxter made the most goals, 14 in the league, 19 in total.

Next Season, the Coca Cola League 2:
After celebrating a very successful season, we had to make plans for The Greatest Return Ever in the Football League. I had to bring in new faces, both players and staff. And I felt I needed a parent club. First I brought in a more attacking tactic. I decided not to change the set-up; Luton Town remained in 4-4-2.

The championship had its effect on my chairman; he was a very happy man. One season can change an entire man! In our first meeting of the season he mainly smiled (a lot!). I asked him for a reasonable wage,- and transfer budget and a parent club. He told me he already made contact with a few candidates for a parent club. I was surprised, what could he have in story for Luton Town? I feared he would come up with Blackpool, Gillingham or Shelbourne FC. First, I thought I misunderstood. Second, I thought he was joking. It sounded quite funny though, surely no Premier League club would be interested in Luton Town. But then he showed me the contract proposal. It was no misunderstanding and it was no joke, the brand new parent club of Luton Town was Tottenham Hotspur!!

Ryan Mason became the first ever Spurs-player who got involved with the deal, he came to Luton Town in an on-loan deal.

Our goalkeeper M Tyler had a great season, but I didn’t have enough trust in him for next season. So I needed a new goalie. I also needed to convince 2 fantastic players to continue their stay on loan at Luton Town, Baxter and Barazite.

I brought in no less then 13 new players on free transfer in the pre-season transfer window so I needed to let go of some players. 11 players left the squad. My top transfer was the departure of Luijten to Bradford FC for €110K. The talk with Baxter and Barazite had a positive outcome, they stayed! Best singing of the pre-season is Sergio Pachon of Rayo Vallecano, a striker with huge potential.

So I had 13 new signings, 3 players on loan, a Premier League parent club, new tactics and some extra cash in the bank account. A huge step forward in the history of the Hatters.

We prepared ourselves for the season with some friendly games against amateurs. Like last season, we needed a good start and we only could manage a good start with high confidence. So we treated ourselves to high-scoring games. After those games we had a friendly against Sheffield United. I know what you thinking, why on earth take a friendly against a bigger opponent? A bad result could absoluty thrash your confidence. I know, but I couldn’t turn down the fee we were offered for this friendly. And of course we got trashed with 1-4. I hoped we could repair the damage against Coventry, a result against a better team could do wonders. We managed the keep our goal clean but weren’t able to score. 0-0.

We started the competition against Port Vale and got a high-score draw, 3-3. In the first month of competitive football we got ourselves kicked out of not only the League Cup but also out of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy. In the league we had more luck. We got some more draws, but managed to keep our unbeaten record for a long time. Our FA cup adventure ended again in the 3th round, this time Reading was much too strong.

The Coca Cola League 2 contained more competitive teams amongst themselves. It seemed to be everybody could win or lose from everybody, Luton was the only exception. We were able to avoid defeat by taking a lot of draws. We became champion with 30 wins, 13 draws and 3 defeats. Gillingham became second, Barnet and Rochdale also got promoted.

We had a more attacking tactic, which proved itself by more goals for us, 15 more than last years, 93 goals. We also conceded a lot more goals, 45 in total, 27 more then last year. 

Best players of the season were again Jose Baxter, Nacer Barazite and Sergio Pachon. Pachon was our topscorer with 23 goals. Barazite and Baxter reaches also the double figures and the best average with both 7.20.

The next season, The Coca Cola League 1:
After another promotion we had to strengthen our squad once more. I dived right in the free player market and got 15 more free players signed for the club. 10 players left, making room for the newcomers. Reason for the invasion of new players is of course a higher league and a new tactic, because I want attack just a little more. So I turned the 4-4-2 tactics in a 4-4-2 Diamond tactics, with a free role for the AMC.

 Also Barazite, Baxter and Mason weren’t willing to re-new their loan-contract. Fortunally the Spurs-Luton paid off once more. Pekhart, a great striking talent,  was willing to come down to Hatters town and he wanted to make an impression.

I promised my chairman another championship. He didn’t even blink his eyes once! He seemed to be used to all the celebrations by now. He agreed with my ambition and simply demanded a some great results.

You surely aren’t surprised if I tell you that we prepared ourselves with trashing some amateurs. Of course, we needed to arrange a friendly game against the Spurs, now the tables were turned. Spurs hammered us with 4-0, we didn’t look like a team at all.

Our unbeaten run only lasted 5 game, Swansea beat us with 1-2 in the sixth league game of the season. Swansea kicked us out of the League Cup in the first round. We got better results in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy but to be honest, we didn’t do great in the league. Halfway November we already lost 3 games and draw 4 teams. With 10 wins and a 8th place we weren’t heading for promotion, although we were only just a few points below the promotion place.

I had a call of the chairman. I thought it was about my request for increasing the stadium. At first, it was. He denied. But my great pale wanted to discus the teams form. He had been watching the table and the performance. Every word he speak made him look a bit uglier in my opinion and my thought were wondering of. Didn’t I take Luton Town to the Football League? And didn’t we win two competitions in a row? After closing the door behind me, leaving the meeting I made my decision.

The next day I turned in my contract and told the chairman I resigned. I wished them all of the best luck in the world and leaved Luton Town with a smile on my face.

Best Luton Team of All Time:

The best player of the Luton game is Mettomo. Of course that decision was influenced by the short duration of the game, but he turned out to be a cheap, reliable central defender, who did a very good job at Luton. He was involved in all three of my seasons.   

Thank you for reading!
PS. The true reason for resigning is not the meeting with the chairman. To be honest, there wasn’t a meeting at all. The Luton Town story will be my one and only story at Footballmanagerstory.com. I noticed my fun in FM2010 changed during the Luton game because in the back of my head I kept thinking about the way I would bring the story to you. Also I read the stories of Johnny and Kevin Mayo and the level of their story telling capacities is so much higher then the Luton Town story, I disappointed myself a bit. It’s very hard to blog in English if isn’t your best language and I have the deepest respect for both Johnny as Kevin as al the other writers on Footballmanagerstory.com. Keep up to good work guys!! I want to thank Johnny for the opertunity he gave me, thanks!!!

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