Monday saw the inevitable at Kenilworth Road. Luton Town’s 0-0 draw with Chesterfield that confirmed their relegation from The Football League was, while nowhere near as important, the sporting equivalent of the reluctant pulling of the plug on a life-support machine that had long since been maintaining its occupant’s condition on its own.
The decision to force the team to start the season with a 30-point deduction was one that they were never going to recover from. No matter how better they could have been then some of the other clubs at the foot of League Two, there is no way they were going to be 31 points superior to two of them. They were essentially stuffed before they were started as a result of the by-now regular plundering from numerous clubs of rewards earned by those on the pitch for offences made by those off it.
Leeds United, Bournemouth, Rotherham United (all more than once), Darlington and Cambridge United have all been hit by administration-related points deductions in the past few years, and there are threats of more to follow, the most talked-about at the moment being the case at Southampton. Luton’s current position sees a team who three seasons ago made a fine start to a first season after promotion to the Championship and threatened - not for the last time - to oust Liverpool from the FA Cup, now having suffered a third successive relegation and been docked 40 points over two seasons, due to the money men’s inability to operate within the rules.
Now, no longer a schoolboy prone to chewing gum in class just because I was told not to, I agree that rules are not there to be broken or ignored. Financial irregularities were found at Luton by right. Furthermore, last year they failed to comply with insolvency rules meaning their 10-point hit was trebled. They did do wrong and no, they cannot be let away with it. But are the right people being punished?
There are arguments for and against the current punishments in place for going into administration and other finance-related misdemeanours, but those with a sense of what it is to have feelings for a club and a team all argue that they and the players they adore should not be the ones punished. Fans of well-run clubs are all for it, but it is not that long ago that Southampton and Charlton were those well-run clubs and now they cannot look up without looking down.
I’m not sure what the solution is, I’m just saying points deduction is not it. Saying that if a club has broken the rules to incur advantage over others then it should be punished is yes, right. Excessive fines are obviously not the answer given the clubs do not have the cash. Perhaps those who mismanage the finances should be immediately and terminally banned from football involvement, though then you have a situation where cash-strapped clubs are forced onto the market at perhaps their most unappealing time as an acquisition, leaving them even worse off than they were.
Whatever the solution, transfer embargoes and the forced cashing in on of star assets already hamper these teams enough on the field without giving their rivals a head-start. Fans, youth-team players, football men through and through like Mick Harford should not see what they love punished for that which they were not involved. Especially the supporters, who provide much of the income that is mismanaged to begin with.
Just a week after 40,000 Hatters fans turned out in support of Harford’s men at Wembley and watched them overcome all the adversity laden upon them to defeat Scunthorpe United in thrilling fashion and win The Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, I ask do these supporters deserve the sentence handed out to their club? These are fans, ranging from the aged who saw the team’s first top tier spell in the fifties to those who joined them to watch Luton win the League Cup in 1988 amid a ten-year tenure in the top flight that they only slipped out of on the eve of the birth of the Premier League. These are fans who only a few seasons ago, in some cases less, rightly made League trips to state-of-the-art or traditionally iconic stadia such as The Stadium of Light, Molineux, Pride Park, St Andrews, St Mary’s and Elland Road, and what’s more they are fans who – despite their anger at what has been done to their club – will be at Salisbury and Eastbourne next year cheering on their team. These are football people, far more so than those who have disregarded their club and are happy to let it rot.
Those responsible for the problems at Luton are long gone. Those paying for their mistakes are set to do so for some time yet. Nick Owen's club-first consortium are now in place, while the graceful manner in which the Luton players at Wembley last week all shook hands with Sir Brian Mawhinney, the man who was adamant that there would be no giving back of any of the points they were stripped of, has only served to further enhance the neutral disgust at what has happened to them. Lesser men would have been tempted to form those hands into a fist and make something of a higher connection with the Football League chairman’s anatomy. But no, these guys did what they have done all season, acted with dignity and honour and went out and played, going on to claim a trophy that they probably wish they could have swapped for even ten league points.
With no offence intended to Chester, Grimsby, Macclesfield or anyone else who could yet get dragged into the battle to avoid the second relegation place from League Two, I hope Bournemouth avoid it – one casualty of the points system is more than enough. The Cherries, like Luton, have performed outstandingly and have gotten themselves out of the bottom two led by the inexperienced, but Bournemouth besotted, Eddie Howe. They started the season 13 points better off than Luton, but 17 worse off than everyone else, bar the better-equipped Rotherham, and their efforts also deserve to be lauded and to bear fruit.
On the issue of Southampton avoiding a hit because it is not the club itself that has gone into administration, fans of other clubs have mixed views. Some Luton, Bournemouth and Leeds people are raging that the Saints might get away with what they didn’t, but others, and I insist this is the right-minded view, are happy for them to have found a way to bypass the rules that are trying to kill clubs. They say if Southampton pulled a fast one and it worked, good luck to them. And if they can avoid the Championship bottom three, having for the coffers' sake played most of the season with a bunch of babies, while their best chance of a goal was frequenting the Champions League, then why should they be punished? They might as well have gone all out and ignored their financial plight if they are just going to get hit anyway.
The very future of the Saints regrettably remains in doubt, as is the case with football clubs everywhere. In Scotland, Clyde have seen themselves faced with having no ground for upcoming fixtures over unpaid rent and their future is up in the air. In Ireland, recent Premier Division champions Cork City and Drogheda United were both deducted points over financial meltdown last season and while the deductions were not enough to relegate either, the powers that be have effectively said that in future they may ensure points penalties are extended to enough to send teams down. The team that won the league between Cork and Drogheda in 2006, Shelbourne, were forcibly relegated before the following season got underway as a result of their financial woe.
Back in England, pessimistic predictions have warned that over ten League clubs could go out of business this year. We have heard threats like this for several years, but now at a time when all of us would like to find our banker’s home address to administer some form of chiding and relieve some stress, it is a stark reality. Southampton are one of those teams mentioned and looking at The Saints, a team who not so long ago were regularly depriving Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea of Premier League points, and at how 2001 Champions League semi-finalists Leeds almost hit the wall, should just remind those who are happy for other teams to get docked points that their own ‘well-run’ club might not always be so safe. Outside the confines of the European regulars, is anybody safe?
This is football at the end of the day, a game to be played and one to be watched and adored by the men and women in the stands. The result of all the money that has gone into the game has clearly backfired in so many boardrooms and new solutions need to be looked at, aimed at preventing what has happened at Luton and not inevitably making things worse for them. The 30-point hit given to Luton was akin to sticking someone no bigger than Verne Troyer into a boxing ring with no gloves and under the influence and then bringing out the Klitschko brothers as his opponents, having told them he insulted their mother. It was a death sentence.
When The Hatters line out in the Blue Square Premier next season, every football fan in the country will want them to win it (except the fans of Blue Square clubs who will still I’m sure be happy to see The Hatters go up through the playoffs, while their own club takes top spot). The Football authorities have only made enemies in this whole process, Luton only friends. The very fact that they kept relegation at bay until now showed the stuff of extraordinary fighters.
“Five to five on April 13, this is the rebirth of Luton Town Football Club,” Harford said on learning of their relegation due to other results on Monday. We are led to believe he will remain at the club, and no man will try harder to have them right back in The Football League in 13 months’ time. I, for one, wish them all the best.