Warning: This article is about the global game of football – you know … that game in which players actually kick the ball with their feet, rather than the sport known as American football, in which most of the ball action involves the hands. For an explanation of the English football league system see the footnote. For meanings of some English football terms also the relevant footnotes.
It was a game of high drama at London’s Wembley stadium on Saturday 27th May. On arguably the most famous turf in all of football, The Town played out 120 minutes of deadlock against Coventry City. Penalty kicks beckoned to settle the 2023 Championship Final. The prize was promotion to the Premier League, the richest in global football.
It’s only a game, but six kicks can be the difference between ignominy and immortality. Six against seven in sudden death leads only to depression and disappointment; six against five and the trajectory can only be upward.
I have followed The Town through successes and failures as far back as I can remember. I was there when they were four up against Liverpool inside sixteen minutes, and I remember the Antic goal against Manchester City that kept the team in the highest division in 1983. There was also great joy in 2013 when The Town became the first non-league team to win against Premier League opposition defeating Norwich City ranked eighty-three places above them in an FA cup match.
The sad loss to Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup final was before my time but it was thrilling to tune in on short wave radio from the African wilderness for the last ten minutes of the 1988 League Cup final. The Town beat the mighty Arsenal with the final kick of the match to win the only major trophy of their long history.
Luton is my hometown and Luton Town are my team. The town, located thirty miles north of London, in a gap in the Chiltern hills, is not a fashionable place. It has few claims to fame and apart from its airport is unmemorable. Most recently noteworthy about Luton was its setting as the location for the 2019 movie tribute to the music of Bruce Springsteen, Blinded by the Light.
As with the town, the Luton Town stadium is somewhat nondescript. The Kenny, as the Kenilworth Road ground is affectionately known, is nearly a hundred and twenty years old, and accommodates only ten thousand spectators. Hemmed in by rows of terraced townhouses on three sides, and a major road on the fourth, there is no room for expansion. Renovations have been few and far between. Compared to the likes of Liverpool’s Anfield, Manchester United’s Old Trafford, and West Ham United’s home in the former 2012 Olympic Stadium, Luton Town play in a quaint and antiquated original.
In 1992, The Town could be found among the footballing elite of the old First Division of the Football League. They had managed ten years in the topflight and, along with the other members of that division voted for the creation of the Premier League. Unfortunately, their relegation to the second division at the end of that season meant they never benefited from their vote, nor the associated financial rewards from lucrative new television screening deals.
That relegation was the beginning of several. The concept is unknown to the American where a principle of once a football team, rooted in the NFL, always a football team, prevails. That is, of course, until another city offers a bright new stadium and the team ups and leaves town, moving halfway across the nation.
By 2009 the club, beset by financial problems and sorely lacking a cohesive and consistent team, had dropped out of the Football League, into the National League, the fifth tier of English football, where they languished for five years. Something of a renaissance began in 2014 when they returned to the League following a runaway season amassing 101 points, nineteen ahead of their nearest rivals.
Subsequent successive promotions brought them to the brink of the Premiership during the 2021-2022 season. First and second rankings in the second tier of the League award automatic promotion. Clubs placing third through sixth qualify for a knockout playoff. That season Luton reached the playoffs but lost out on promotion. During the most recent season, and following a fourteen-match unbeaten streak, The Town finished third and qualified for the playoffs once again. They won their first match and so qualified for the playoff final in front of 87,000 spectators at Wembley.
On a mild May evening Luton played one of the greatest games in their history. A sea of orange clad supporters had traveled the short distance down the motorway to face the sky-blue opposition across the stands, while eleven of each strip[i] lined up across the pitch[ii] for the action to unfold.
In the eighth minute The Town captain collapsed on the field with an atrial fibrillation and the match was paused for ten minutes while he was stretchered away. Three times Luton had the ball in the back of the net only to see each score disallowed for an infraction. Ninety minutes ended with one goal apiece; thirty minutes of extra time only prolonged the stalemate. As in the drawn[iii] home and away regular season games it had proved impossible to separate the teams. Penalty kicks beckoned as the only way to end the deadlock.
Each team was given five chances to score a spot-kick against the opposition goalkeeper. Rarely do all ten kicks prove successful. The stalemate continued, as one by one and alternating between teams, the best five from each came to the spot and slotted their kicks passed the keeper and into the net. Sudden death followed, with victory and defeat decided in a moment.
The Town captain, the third to wear the armband on the day, with the hospitalized captain’s replacement having been substituted late in extra time, stepped into the box. In front of thousands of screaming fans, he calmly shot past the keeper. At that moment, watching from the comfort of my armchair thousands of miles away, I was sure that I knew what would happen. The sixth Coventry kicker would miss!
The night before I had a very vivid dream. I saw Mick Harford, one of the star players of the Luton team of the 1980s, occasional interim team manager and current chief recruitment officer, dressed sharply in suit and tie standing with two unidentified players in the Luton strip. Above them, a clear sign with the words: “Six Penalty Kicks”. Why the vision? I have no idea… but it had to be a sign.
The sixth Coventry kicker’s ball went ballooning up above the goal into the crowd. He held his head in shame. The Luton players ran the field in jubilation while their opponents slumped in disappointment. For the first time in the history of English football, a team had gone from the heights of the first division, all the way down and out of the league, only to return to the topflight. For the first time one player, Pelly Ruddock, had played for the same team all the way from non-league into the Premiership. Records were broken that May afternoon in North London, and a team that plays its home games on an ancient football field, amidst the most unglamorous of facilities will host the likes of Manchester City, Liverpool, and Arsenal next season.
It may only be a game, but English football is the greatest game, and six kicks were all it took for the greatest comeback ever on May 27th, 2023.
[i] English Strip – US Uniform
[ii] English Pitch – US Field
[iii] English Drawn – US Tied
The English Football League System – A brief explanation for the American reader.
The system for organizing professional English soccer teams originates in the late 19th century and exists among many things, to enable successful clubs to be promoted to a higher tier and play against tougher opposition while under-performing teams can be relegated to a lower grouping. There are nine recognized divisions to the system below which regional divisions exist. It is this system that offers the possibility to the most obscure of clubs, often playing at the smallest of club facilities, the opportunity to play one day against the greatest of teams.
The top division is known as the Premier League. It is the well-known teams like Manchesters United and City, and Liverpool, all from North-Western England, and London clubs such as The Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, who play in this division. Below the Premiership the next three tiers complete the Football League. With twenty teams in the topflight, and twenty-four in each of the lower divisions, the ninety-two teams of the League compete against each other in an annual knock-out tournament called the League Cup. It was this trophy which Luton Town won in 1988.
The League and the lower divisional system are collectively named the Football Association, or FA. All the teams across this association compete annually in the FA Cup, another knock-out tournament which, as it captures the imaginations of the British sporting public, is most akin to the American Superbowl. The 2023 final was recently won by Manchester City, playing against their local rivals, Manchester United. That victory, along with their retention of the Premiership title and their victory in the European Champions Tournament against Inter Milan of Italy, gave Manchester City an historic treble title season and makes them arguably the best team in Europe.
An interesting sidenote to the story of the English Football League is that Welsh teams participate. Notably, Cardiff and Swansea both play in the second tier, although to Americans Wrexham City, in the fourth tier may be most well-known being owned by Hollywood actors, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny.
THE FULLER REPORT 