Take me back to the Championship
It's time to shut the "expert" pundits up once and for all. We used to get respect from Championship pundits, but the Premier League is a whole new ball game.
Since dropping out of the top flight in 1992, every Luton Town fan has dreamed of reaching the top flight again. However, the reality is that the top flight has become unrecognisable from the Division 1 we left. The very system that we voted to bring in but then had to wait 31 years to play in has become a mess of: silent arenas where home fans recline in their decadent stadiums like ancient Romans at the Colosseum waiting to be entertained; armchair social media fans forming opinions on clubs they have never watched in real life; and most worryingly the “expert” opinions of pundits who have assumed if your summer window hasn’t exceeded a net spend of £500m on transfers you simply aren’t trying.
Luton Town is regarded by many as the Frankensteins’ Monster of the Premier League. Like the character in the 1818 novel penned by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein cobbles together and re-animates a corpse, which tries its best to fit in with the local Villagers. In parallel to this theme, Gary Sweet and the board, have taken what was essentially a dead club, on its knees, quite literally on the cusp of non existence and re-animated it. Unlike the monster in Shelley’s book, they didn’t get us lumbering around, they got us full on sprinting in the right direction. However, Luton Town were not greeted by terrified villagers in each league we have passed through. We had been greeted by curiosity, admiration and wonderment from so many other clubs who are dreaming of emulating and replicating what we have here.
That all changed when we reached the Premier League. At first, neutral fans and pundits gave the customary “fair play Luton”, which quickly changed to “you’re going to beat Derby’s record”. It has since snowballed and Garth Crooks has become the poster boy for the widespread opinion amongst the World Wide Premier League punditry roster. After his initial ill advised and ignorant comments following our West Ham match, whereby he stated the mathematical impossibility “that we would be down by Christmas”, Rob Edwards addressed these comments and offered Garth the chance to pop into the Brache and see what Luton Town are about. Now, the sensible option for Garth would have been to politely decline and stop making his uninformed comments. However, Garth Crooks decided to double down on his ignorance. You can read his response to Rob Edwards’ kind invitation here, which was appended to the bottom of his Team of the Week selection.
You can clearly see from where Crooks’ ignorance stems. It’s quite obvious that other than his regular noshing off, of the Big 6, his knowledge of football outside the Premier League is worryingly lacking and he appears to be detached from reality. The most recent player he mentions is John Hartson, a player who left us 1995 (28 years ago) and went onto have a stellar career. However, Crooks says you need to spend to survive, whereas the players he mentions in his blog (Stein, Hill, Donaghy, Walsh) were all sensational players plucked from obscurity for tiny fees or free transfers. Hand in hand with what Brighton have managed to do, albeit with slightly more investment than us, this shows that operating on a strict budget and “not blowing our brains out financially” (a direct quote from Gary Sweet) is still a good tactic when it comes to having a good go at The Premier League.
I will not take this season we are having in the Premier League for granted. After all, it has safeguarded the long term future of our club, rejuvenated Kenilworth Road for its curtain call before we move to our debt free new stadium at Power Court. These undertakings are far from the “bare minimum” that Crooks believes they are. However, I am tired of the ignorance of those perceived as the “experts”. Take me back to the Championship. Sure, the media spotlight is not what we experiencing now, but in the Championship, we could watch Benjamin Bloom, Ben HD, David Prutton and The Second Tier Podcast fellas, who were informed, not overly biased and most importantly, respectful of our journey.
I’m already tired of the Premier League. However, as always with Luton Town, when you write us off, you will just unite us. For now it’s just more fuel on the fire that’s burning inside every single player in our squad.
It’s time to make some people eat their words, and if we do, I guess we will have to grin and bear another season of walking across the minefield of ignorance laid out by the “experts”.
As an FYI too, we stayed up in 1983 on the final day of the season, with all these sublime players that Garth Crooks listed in his blog. Garth wasn’t the first to write us off this season, and he certainly won’t be the last.
Always back the team. COME ON YOU HATTERS.
In the 77 years I have supported the Town I have never felt so downcast. Not because of our position, which most realistic supporters
can accept, but the feeling now that supporters that are really supportive, are the the last to be
considered. Totally controlled by TV companies
who can run things how they want with no consideration for supporters. Changing times as they want no matter how difficult it is for travelling fans, and not allowing streaming through our local club for matches that they will not be broadcasting.
There is a feeling of disrespect all round for our great club. The board and staff have been wonderful and we must continue to show how we appreciate everybody at the club.
The best thing to do is ignore it. GC is a complete and irrelevant idiot seeking some oxygen to prove he has any value beyond his loved ones. Don’t feed him. Not anyone else with a salty opinion of how the club is doing.
Don’t read press coverage of Luton, don’t watch what the pundits say after your highlights package of choice. In fact, don’t bother with the highlights. Life is better experienced in first person - in this case go to every match you can.
The order of importance:
1) how are the people at the club doing and feeling? If they’re trying their best, eff what anyone thinks. And if they’re feeling down about idiots, let’s cheer them up and remind them we don’t care what anyone else thinks.
2) how do we feel in the stands? If there’s an idiot around you moaning that we’re losing, explain their stupidity to them. Remind them that all that matters is we will still have a financially stable club to watch next august in either the championship or the PL. losing games isn’t a problem. Losing our financial stability and our culture are the only problems that matter.
3) nothing else.