Luton Town F.C.

Luton Town Football Club is a professional football club from Luton, Bedfordshire, England. The club currently competes in EFL League One, the third tier of the English football league system. Nicknamed "The Hatters", Luton have played their home games at Kenilworth Road since 1905.

Luton Town joined the Football League before the 1897–98 season but left soon after in 1900 due to financial issues. The club did not rejoin the League until 1920. Luton competed in the First Division for the first time during the 1955–56 season and contested a major final for the first time against Nottingham Forest in the 1959 FA Cup final. The club was then relegated from the First Division at the end of the 1959–60 season, and further relegated twice more in five years, playing in the Fourth Division from the 1965–66 season, before returning to the First Division for the 1974–75 season for a single season.

At the end of the 1981–82 season, the club won the Second Division and gained promotion to the First Division. Several years later, Luton defeated Arsenal 3–2 in the 1988 Football League Cup final and remained in the First Division until relegation at the end of the 1991–92 season.

Between 2007 and 2009, financial difficulties caused the club to fall from the second tier of English football to the fifth in successive seasons. The last of these relegations, in the 2008–09 season, followed a 30-point deduction for financial irregularities. Luton spent five seasons in non-League football before winning the Conference Premier in the 2013–14 season, securing promotion back into the Football League. Luton were promoted from League Two and League One in successive seasons in 2017–18 and 2018–19 before being promoted to the Premier League at the conclusion of the 2023 Championship playoffs. After spending a season in the Premier League, Luton saw two back-to-back relegations, seeing them play in the current 2025–26 League One season.

History

Formation and election to the Southern League (1885–1890)

Luton Town Football Club was founded on 11 April 1885. Prior to its formation, there were many other football clubs in the town, the most prominent of which were Luton Wanderers and Luton Excelsior. A Wanderers player, George Deacon, came up with the idea of a 'Town' club which would include all the best players in Luton. Wanderers secretary Herbert Spratley seized upon Deacon's idea and arranged a secret meeting on 13 January 1885 at St Matthew's School in High Town, near the railway station. The Wanderers committee resolved to rename the club Luton Town—which was not well received by the wider community. The local newspapers referred to the club as 'Luton Town (late Wanderers)'. When George Deacon and John Charles Lomax then arranged a public meeting with the purpose of forming a 'Luton Town Football Club', Spratley protested, saying there was already a Luton Town club; and the atmosphere was tense when the meeting convened in the town hall on 11 April 1885. The meeting, attended by most football lovers in the town, heard about Spratley's secret January meeting and voted down his objections. The motion to form a 'Luton Town Football Club', put forward by GH Small and seconded by EH Lomax, was carried. A club committee was elected by ballot and the team colours were agreed to be pink and dark blue shirts and caps.

Initially based at Excelsior's ground, Dallow Lane, Luton Town began making payments to certain individual players in 1890. The following year, Luton became the first club in southern England to be fully professional. The club was a founder member of the Southern Football League in the 1894–95 season and finished as runners-up in its first two seasons. It then left to help form the United League and came second in that league's inaugural season before joining the Football League (then based mostly in northern and central England)^[A] for the 1897–98 season, concurrently moving to a new ground, Dunstable Road. The club continued to enter a team to the United League for two more seasons, winning the title in the1897–98 season. Poor attendance, high wages, in addition to the high travel and accommodation costs that resulted from Luton's distance from the northern heartlands of the Football League crippled the club financially; it became too expensive to compete in that league. A return to the Southern League was therefore arranged for the 1900–01 season.

Early 20th century (1900–1950)

Luton moved into their current ground, Kenilworth Road, in 1905 after having spent eight years at Dunstable Road. Captain and left winger Bob Hawkes became Luton's first international player when he was picked to play for England against Ireland on 16 February 1907. A poor 1911–12 season saw Luton relegated to the Southern League's Second Division; the club won promotion back two years later. After the First World War broke out, Luton took part in The London Combination during the 1915–16 season, and afterwards filled each season with friendly matches. A key player of the period was Ernie Simms, a forward. Simms was invalided back to England after being wounded on the Italian front, but recovered enough to regain his place in the Luton team and scored 40 goals during the 1916–17 season.

The Luton side first played in the white and black colours which it retained for much of its history during the 1920–21 season, when the club rejoined the Football League; the players had previously worn an assortment of colour combinations, most permanently sky blue shirts with white shorts and navy socks. Such was the quality of Luton's team at this time that despite playing in the third tier, a fixture between Ireland and England at Windsor Park on 22 October 1921 saw three Luton players on the pitch—Louis Bookman and Allan Mathieson for Ireland, and the club's top goalscorer, Simms, for England. However, after Luton finished fourth in the division, the squad was broken up as Simms, Bookman and Mathieson joined South Shields, Port Vale and Exeter City respectively. Luton stayed in the Third Division South until 1936–37, when the team finished top and won promotion to the Second Division. During the promotion season, striker Joe Payne scored 55 goals in 39 games; during the previous season he had scored 10 in one match against Bristol Rovers, which remains a Football League record today. Towards the end on the 1936-37 season Eddie Parris became the first Black player to represent Luton when he made his debut on 13 March 1937 in a home game against Northampton Town.

Success under Duncan and relegation (1950–1965)

During the early 1950s, one of Luton's greatest sides emerged under manager, Dally Duncan. The team included Gordon Turner, who went on to become Luton's all-time top goalscorer, Bob Morton, who holds the record for the most club appearances and Syd Owen, an England international. During this period, Luton sides also featured two England international goalkeepers, Ron Baynham and Bernard Streten, as well as Irish internationals Seamus Dunne, Tom Aherne and George Cummins. This team reached the First Division for the first time at the end of the 1955–56 season, having finished in second place behind Birmingham City on goal difference. A few years of success followed, including an FA Cup Final appearance against Nottingham Forest in the 1958–59 season where Owen was voted FWA Footballer of the Year. However, the club was relegated the following season and, by the 1964–65 season, was playing in the Fourth Division.

Back to the first tier and late century success (1965–1992)

In yo-yo club fashion, Luton were to return. A team including Bruce Rioch, John Moore and Graham French won the Fourth Division championship in the 1967–68 season under the leadership of former player Allan Brown; two years later Malcolm Macdonald's goals helped them to another promotion, while comedian Eric Morecambe became a director of the club. Luton Town won promotion back to the First Division at the end of the 1973–74 season, but were relegated the following season by a solitary point. Former Luton player David Pleat was made manager in 1978, and by the 1982–83 season the team was back in the top flight. The team which Pleat assembled at Kenilworth Road was notable at the time for the number of Black players it included; during an era when many English squads were almost entirely white, Luton often fielded a mostly black team. Talented players such as Ricky Hill, Brian Stein and Emeka Nwajiobi made key contributions to the club's success during this period, causing it to accrue "a richer history of black stars than any in the country", in the words of journalist Gavin Willacy.