David Pleat, pictured for an interview with Telegraph Sport in 2018. Photo: Telegraph/Tom Pilston. a celebration for everyone, and for any Luton Town fan looking for the omen before a big weekend, especially a timely anniversary.
Exactly 40 years after David Pleat performed an unforgettable running jig down the old Maine road in Manchester City. pitch after the club's dramatic survival in the top flight, Luton will face Sunderland in the Championship play-off.
“It was like a whirling dervish,” Pleat says, recalling how he instinctively ran onto the pitch after the final whistle of the 1982-1983 season, dancing with his hands up and his tie slung over his shoulder in a baggy beige T-shirt. suit and brown slip-on shoes.
Luton then remained in the elite of English football until the Premier League was formed in 1992 and then fell through the divisions, culminating in a devastating 30-point deduction in 2008–09 for financial irregularities that eventually eventually led to their being excluded from all football. League.
The subsequent return to the divisions was wonderful, and for the 78-year-old Plate, the last person to take them to the top division, it was a source of great pleasure.< /p>
«It's a wonderful story , a fairy tale,” Plit says, explaining the uplifting effect of the perceived injustice of punishing the actions of the previous owners.
“I think adversity has brought them a greater sense of support. They were in the playoffs last year — so why can't they make it? They're a great team and they've set a great course.»
Pleat (left) celebrates keeping Luton Town atop the flight as manager in 1983. Photo: Shutterstock
So what can the Premier League do with Kenilworth Road, Luton's 118-year-old stadium, which with a capacity of 10,356 makes Bournemouth luxurious and spacious? Plit says. “Visitors don't like to go there on these windy streets on the team bus. They will be in huge trouble if they get into the Premier League. All clubs have at least two buses to transport all the staff and people they say they need.
“They will have so many things to think about. But they will be prepared. They know exactly what they will get if they win a big prize. They know exactly how much they're going to spend later on, in percentage terms, on salaries and possibly the stadium.»
There are also direct parallels, Pleat says, to how Luton was so successful at recruiting from the bottom. pyramids. and how he built the team himself after taking a job at the age of just 33 in 1978.
“There's a lot of talent down there,” Plit says. “Mick Harford [Chief Recruiter] has a deep understanding of players. For me, they were good players with talent and strong spirit. I took players from Larne, Hitchin, Boreham Wood, Nuneaton Borough, Harrow Borough, Edgware, Aston Villa reserves, Birmingham reserves, Walsall. The set was excellent and they repeated it.
“None of them played in the Premier League. They gave them a platform and they responded. It was great. That's what other clubs should do. There are no overpriced stars in Luton.”
Slab's diligence in an age where you relied on your own painstaking work — traveling the length and breadth of the country and reading local newspaper reports — rather than videos, statistics and a team of analysts, was ultimately rewarded with Luton's nine years at the top. -flight. It was an outstanding achievement, including two FA Cup semi-finals, most notably in 1985 when they took a 1-0 lead against Everton five minutes before an extra-time defeat.
Pleat during his first tenure as Luton manager in 1983 when he almost reached the FA Cup final. Photo: Shutterstock
However, the most legendary game took place on May 14, 1983, when there was collusion after the penultimate round of matches against the Slab team. they only have to beat Manchester City to stay on their feet and bring down their opponents at the same time.
«It's been an incredible week,» Pleat says, recalling a 5-1 loss to Everton the previous Saturday and then a 3-0 loss to Manchester United the following Monday. Watford by Graham Taylor, Tuesday evening.
«None of the players wanted to leave, but I said, 'We have to,' and we were beaten again,» he says. “So it was already Wednesday and we played three times in four days. On Thursday I took them to the health farm. We tried to remotivate ourselves and deal with injured players. It was a nightmare. On Friday we stopped at Stafford. Left in the afternoon, a longer drive than usual, which was done on purpose so the players could see all the thousands of Luton fans driving to Manchester with horns and scarves hanging from the cars.
“I said. : “Look, we are not alone — we have thousands of people behind us who believe that we can do it. And we can do it. And we deserve it.» We played well that season, but we conceded too many goals. The ground was full at a quarter to two when we got there and it was incredible.”
The match went “almost in a blur…and then we scored with three minutes to go,” Pleat says, describing substitute Reddy Antic’s well-controlled left foot after a desperately tense encounter. Antic had been signed three years earlier from Zaragoza at a time when foreign players were a huge rarity in English football. «What a player — and he was the most fantastic person,» Plit says.
The old footage shows an enthusiastic Plit literally staggering on the touchline, trying to contain his emotions not only from the goal, but also from the realization that the players must urgently refocus on the last minutes of the match. And then, as the final whistle blew to stay up chants from fans in the distance, along with police and horses gathered at the edge of the field, Pleat ran 40 meters to join in the celebration and kiss captain Brian Horton on the cheek. /p>
Antic later took charge of clubs including Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid, and remained a close friend of Slab until his death after contracting Covid-19 during the first wave of the pandemic three years ago .
Slab's own emotions were captured after the game in his Match of the Day interview with Jon Motson.
«Sometimes the best thing you can do is hope…and pray,» he said. . «The guys got smiles, but I think they deserve a smile.»
What about the Slate outfit that day? The costume went to a charity shop and the shoes were auctioned off for £4,000 to raise funds for the Luton Town Academy.
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