Next up a Luton Town side that have spent a lot of money by their standards over the summer and were tipped to finish in the top two this season by someone on a Championship podcast I sometimes listen to. Looking at the two team’s combined goals for and against record this season, there’s been a total of sixteen goals scored in the twelve games they’ve been involved in so far.
So, although it’s not guaranteed of course, the signs are that it’s going to be another tight encounter with goals at a premium. With the transfer window not closing until Thursday night, I’d be very surprised if there’d be any new players in either side tomorrow although you surely have to think that there is at least one more to come in on the City side anyway.
Here’s the usual seven questions with the answers being someone who has played for Luton during the decade in question in each case. I’ll post the answers on Wednesday.
60s. Luton were the first of only two clubs this Scottish goalkeeper played for. However, the closest he ever got to playing for the senior side was when the first choice goalkeeper attended his father’s funeral on a match day, but managed to get back to join up with the team twenty minutes before kick off. So, our man, who had been told he would be playing, dropped out almost at the last minute.
By complete contrast, he became a record holder at his other club for playing more games for them than anyone else. Highlights from his seventeen years with this club included a run to the League Cup Semi Finals in the late sixties, an away win at Roma, a call up to the Scottish squad (he never won a cap) and being able to say that he was a First Division footballer. He would have moved to Celtic when they were close to their European Cup winning best if the transfer hadn’t been blocked late on by his club’s Board and he would probably not wanted to have been reminded of what was his most memorable encounter with City at Ninian Park, but can you name him?
70s. Another Scot, he came into the professional game relatively late when he was spotted by a power in the land as a seventeen year old playing for a club called Cowie Hearts. It didn’t take him too long to break into the first team though and his first goal came in his third game, a 6-1 win over Aston Villa. Never a regular during his six years at his first club, he signed for Luton as this decade started and played around two hundred times for them in his six years there – although he had not finished yet with either his first club or Luton. Moving to America, he represented a city probably most famous for a type of Soap and an assassination and was the only member of their squad to support a country wide call to strike for better pay before moving indoors to play for a city where I suppose that, as a winger, he could have been called a lineman which would have been very appropriate under the circumstances – who is he?
80s. Sounds like he was no fan of recorded messages!
90s. Mixing marking head teachers and playing up front? (3,5)
00s. Shoved water to create aerial threat. (5,6)
10s. He played against City in front of 66,000, has deputised for Jimmy Bullard and was playing in what is now known as the Vanarama Conference for Luton about a decade ago, who?
20s. He’s played for a club which, confusingly, has the nicknames The Ravens and the Lilywhites, another one known as the Ks and is now at Luton, who is he?
Answers.
60s. Allan Ross never got to play a game for Luton Town, but he played four hundred and sixty six times for Carlisle United. He was in the Carlisle team which won at Roma in the Anglo Italian Cup and the one which, very briefly went to the top of the First Division by winning at Chelsea on the opening day of the 74/75 season. He also played in the “Warboys match” in 1971 when the City striker scored a hat trick in the first ten minutes and added a fourth before half time.
70s.Jimmy Ryan signed for Manchester United in 1963 and played nearly thirty league games for them before joining Luton in 1970. He was part of a squad which won promotion to the First Division while at Luton, but they’d returned to the second tier by the time he left to sign for Dallas Tornado and later for the indoor soccer team Wichita Wings. Upon retirement, Ryan moved into coaching and had a pretty successful spell as Luton manager (he kept them in the First Division on the last day of the season in both of his campaigns as boss) but was sacked at the end of 90/91 before being appointed Assistant Manager to Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and, later, Director of Youth at Old Trafford.
80s. Tim Breacker.
90s. Kim Grant.
00s. Steve Howard.
10s. Kevin Gallen was in the QPR team beaten by City in the 2003 third tier Play Off Final at the Millennium Stadium, he has stood in for Jimmy Bullard on The Magic Sponge podcast and he played for Luton during their spell out of the Football League between 2009 and 2013.
20s. Our loanee from last season Alfie Doughty signed for Luton in the summer and includes Bromley (the Ravens and the Lilywhites) and Kingstonian (the Ks) among his former clubs.
