As the news broke on Kenilworth Road, a clutter of rusted metal and peeling paint that Luton Town Football Club call home, the tone began to change. The sentence began with nothing more than a traditional polite welcome to the stadium that night for the visiting team, Manchester City.
But by the end, the announcer’s voice seemed overcome with something that sounded a little awed. Fans in the stands and players on the field were reminded that Luton were about to face “the winners of the FA Cup, the champions of England and the champions of Europe”. Luton seems to have difficulty trusting the company it now owns.
There is a reason for this. Fifteen years ago, Luton Town were relegated to the fifth tier of English football, a far cry from the power and prestige of the Premier League. The club was founded in 1885 and there was a real risk a few years ago. The invention of the zipper, may collapse completely. In the years since, money remained tight and ambitions modest.
Luton Town now has an even grander view. Last summer it unexpectedly ascended to become the richest and most popular sports league in the world. Thirty years after last playing in England’s top flight, it can once again compete alongside Manchester City, Manchester United and others.
That meant an immediate shift in the club’s financial prospects: a season playing in the Premier League was worth about $150 million. What’s more, the status that comes with it gives a town that’s long suffered from reputation problems a global platform on which to change not just how it’s viewed by others, but how it’s viewed itself.
In summary, Luton penetrated the British consciousness in three ways. First, as a transportation hub; approximately 16.2 million passengers pass through London Luton Airport every year. But few stay. The clue to their final destination is in the name.
The second point is perhaps best summed up by the results of a 2004 poll by The Idler magazine.Around 1,800 readers award Luton dubious honor as UK’s leading university “Garbage” town. As one reader put it, Luton is essentially a “brick and iron temple of global pollution”.Last year, another survey listed it as The worst places to live in Britain.
Third, and most damaging, is the town’s association with extremism. Three suicide bombers who carried out a series of coordinated attacks in London in 2005 stopped in Luton to collect a fourth accomplice before boarding a train to the capital.A mosque in the town hosted a speech by a radical Islamic preacher Mustafa Carmel Mustafa and Omar Bakri Mohammed.
In 2009, a small number of protesters came from Extremist organization Al Muhajiroun Demonstration held in Luton against British soldiers returning from Afghanistan. This triggered counter-protests from a series of far-right groups in the town. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known by his stage name, is a far-right provocateur. Tommy Robinson ——Born in Luton.
For a time, the town was regarded, unintentionally and unwillingly, as the heartland of the British Defense League, the nationalist group he founded.The largest march in the group’s short history Held there in 2011.Another controversial figure is provocateur andrew tateAccused of human trafficking and sex crimes, he spent part of his childhood at the town’s Marsh Farm estate.
When – if – the rest of England thinks of Luton, it is against this backdrop: divided, rancorous, blighted. However, Luton always saw something different.
“That place you see on the news: I don’t recognize it,” said Tanher Ahmed, 42, at Hatters Fish and Restaurant, a few minutes’ walk from Kenilworth Road. said from behind the Chips counter. “There’s harmony here,” he added. “There’s a sense of community.”
Bury Park, next to the stadium, can feel very different from the city center – the streets are filled with sari shops, kebab shops and aromatic sweet shops rather than the chain pubs and bookmakers that dot most British high streets – But Luton sees this as a strength.
“Luton has always been a gathering place for a community of people,” said Maryan Broadbent, a board member of Luton Town’s main fans group. When the town was a center for millinery and car manufacturer Vauxhall, there was an influx of workers not only from India and Pakistan, but also from Ireland and later Eastern Europe.
“It’s always changing here,” Ms. Broadbent said. The town’s Muslim community has long struggled with the small number of extremists who make up Al-Muhajiroun and the notion that they are somehow representative.
but The performance of its football team in the Premier League For residents, this is an opportunity to provide an alternative definition of Luton.
Mr Ahmed chose to win hearts and minds on a case-by-case basis. When he saw a gap in the market, he opened his own store. “There are no chipmunks in the area,” he explained. Fans have to walk the bustling streets of Bury Park to get to the stadium, so he knew there would be demand. “I wanted to make a good impression on this town,” he added.
It also helps that the club not only exists in the Premier League – an incredible guest – but also provides one of the most compelling storylines of the season.
Luton’s squad is small – one of its mainstays, Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu, is now the only player to have represented the same club in the top five tiers of English football – —The leader is Rob Edwards, a young, charismatic player (and, not entirely irrelevant, very handsome) coach.
It has a ramshackle, hostile stadium that harkens back to a time before the edges of elite sport were smoothed and polished to a high sheen. It has shown it can compete with wealthier, better-established rivals. With a few games remaining, Luton still retain slim hopes of avoiding relegation and securing a spot among the elite for a second season.
Sometimes teams get beaten and the romance of the story is lost in the cold, brutal reality of capitalism – like against Manchester City, where Luton lost 6-2. But the team’s courage won them many friends.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp described Mr Edwards’ work with the team in positive terms as “crazy”. Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta insists Luton Town “deserve more honors than any other team in the league”.
For the small town of Luton, this positive connection is a rare and precious thing. In recent years, it has fostered a thriving arts scene.When Sarfraz Manzoor, a writer who grew up in Luton, was appointed chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire last year, he said he would use his position to engage people Think Luton is “cool”.
But having a Premier League team won’t change any of the deep-rooted problems facing Luton.Unemployment is Higher than the national averagefor example, there are as many as There are 15,000 children in the town Living in poverty.
There may also be material benefits from the club’s success. The Premier League earns about $150 million a season, some of which has been set aside to help build new stadiums. Ms Broadbent said the stadium would be closer to the city center and could “change the parts that have failed Luton”. But the intangible benefits are equally valuable.
For nearly a year, millions of people have thought about Luton at least once a week. Not as a backwater or as a crucible of intolerance, but as a football team: bold, courageous, hopeful and refreshing.
There are many across England who are increasingly dimming their hopes of Luton Town avoiding relegation and hanging on for another year. It may not have had an impact on the final outcome of the season – the Premier League is not a sentimental place – but it had an impact at Luton.
In its football team, the town has been able to see itself as it wants to be seen. “Whatever happens,” Ms. Broadbent said, musing on the specter that Luton’s feel-good story might not have a happy ending, “we’re already proud of ourselves.”
