Who remembers the day when Luton’s skipper was kidnapped and held to ransom, 24 hours before an important home game? Yes it actually happened!

It was lunchtime Friday 5th March 1971. Hatters captain Mike Keen was relaxing in the Hatters Club bar after a light training session, sipping a coffee. Suddenly the peace was shattered when someone with a loud hailer screamed: “This is a raid, this is a raid.”

Six people dressed in animal costumes burst into the bar and made a beeline for Keen. Astonished staff watched open-mouthed as the captain was bundled out of the building and into a waiting Mini Van. The vehicle sped off towards Dunstable Road and disappeared.

Somebody raced over to manager Alec Stock’s office to give him the news, quickly standing back as he exploded with anger and reached for the phone. It was revealed Keen’s abduction had been a stunt by local students as part of their Rag Week. Whether the Luton skipper had gone with them willingly was not immediately clear, but it didn’t appear so at the time.

Stock was not amused as he tried to find out more. Somebody at Luton College of Technology put his call through to the students’ Rag headquarters. The ensuing conversation wasn’t a friendly one. A spokesman for the students announced: “We have him [Mike Keen] securely in hiding. He is relaxed and smiling and will be released on receipt of a donation from the Football Club to Rag funds.”

Bearing in mind this was the very week the football club’s future had been put in jeopardy by the collapse of the Vehicle & General insurance company, rarely can a request for money have come at a more inopportune moment!

The local press were quickly on to the story and asked the students what would happen to Keen now that furious Stock was refusing to pay up. Would he be released to play against Charlton the following day? They responded by saying the ball was in Mr Stock’s court.

Stock went ballistic when asked for a comment: “I think they’re the biggest load of rubbish God ever created and I hope this rag blows up in their faces. Friday is a very busy day for us – it’s the day we win football matches. If we lose tomorrow you know who is to blame.’

Mike Keen was reportedly ‘held’ for several hours, the deadlock eventually brought to a close after reporters and photographers were allowed into the house in Russell Street where he was captive. But, unlike his manager, Keen was smiling and unfazed by it all. He was duly released.

Following much persuasion by the pressmen, Stock agreed to shake hands with rag organisers Jeff Barnes and Linda Platen, but flatly refused to pay the ransom. Keen was later pictured in the Evening Post being manhandled by a woman wearing a large pig’s head and a man with a large devil’s head!

Apart from raising the manager’s blood pressure, no real harm was done and the whole episode soon forgotten. Keen went on to play well against Charlton the next day, setting up a goal for Viv Busby. The game ended 1-1, a huge disappointment considering Luton were chasing promotion and the visitors rock bottom of the table.

Stock cut an unhappy figure. The V&G crisis, the fading promotion hopes and his irksome daily commute from Surrey was clearly affecting his health. Just a week or so later he ended up in hospital after a severe asthma attack.

A disastrous Easter period killed the promotion dream and the V&G crisis meant free-scoring Malcolm Macdonald would have to be sold. Sadly the superb side created between 1969 and 1971 by Stock, Andrews and Haslam was about to be broken up.