New manager George Kay could not do much to save the 1929/30 season which saw the Town finish a disappointing thirteenth, but during the following summer went back to his old club West Ham, who he had captained in the first F.A.Cup final at Wembley in 1923, and signed Tom Hodgson for £100.  Little did he know that Hodgson would remain involved with the club for over fifty years as player, director, chairman and finally president.

The new campaign got off to another poor start but after Christmas things gradually improved and with Andy Rennie now fully fit after an injury hit period during the previous season the team finished a creditable seventh.  Supporters were right to wonder why the players could not have put on performances during the first part of the season as they had the second, as the division was there for the taking.

The Town and Clapton Orient really got to know each other during the 1930/31 season.  Drawn together in the F.A.Cup the teams drew 2-2 at Luton but the Town were victorious in the replay at Highbury. Arsenal’ s ground was used because the authorities had decreed that the fence surrounding Orient’s new Lea Bridge enclosure was too close to the pitch with the playing area then too small if the lines were re-drawn.

With the Town obviously still in the F.A.Cup, a scheduled home league game against Orient was changed to the Monday afternoon of 15th December but no-one appeared to have told the referee and linesmen who did not turn up.  A local referee was eventually found and after borrowing a whistle from a police officer started the game almost an hour late. With the away side winning 4-3 bad light and fog eventually caused the game to be abandoned with 20 minutes left which was no surprise given the time of year!

When the game was eventually played the Town went down 0-1 in a bad tempered contest which saw ace marksman Andy Rennie dismissed for the only time in his career.  “He dared me to pull his nose so I did”, said Rennie afterwards.  For nose pulling read thumping which was not the thing to do right in front of the referee. 

Rennie’s subsequent suspension meant that he missed the away league game at Clapton which the Town lost 2-3.

Thames Association Football Club enjoyed a brief, exciting but ultimately unsuccessful life in the east end of London as a club formed to play at the new West Ham Stadium. Born in 1928, Thames was the brainchild of a quick talking showman who wanted a football club to fit in alongside his speedway team and his greyhound racing. 

Immediately accepted into the Southern League it was only two years before they had remarkably been voted in to the Football League. Albeit situated in a densely populated area Thames were on the doorstep of West Ham and Clapton Orient with Arsenal and Tottenham not much further away and it is little wonder that they struggled crowd wise from the off which must have been particularly galling to the men in charge who saw spectators dotted around a stadium that had held 64,000 for speedway and 56,000 for greyhound racing!

When the Town visited Thames in December 1930 a crowd of only 469 turned up which was a new low for a Saturday game, a Football League record which stands to this day. The Town received a postal order for 1/8d (8p) in respect of their share of the gate which was framed and hung on the boardroom wall.

Such was the Town’s poor form in the first half of the season that they went down 0-1 to Thames in the east end fog although in mitigation the players had just got through a tough F. A. Cup replay only two days before.

By the time of the return the Town were in a rich vein of form but were surprised when Thames took the game to them and were the stronger side for the opening 15 minutes. George McNestry then opened the scoring against the run of play before Archie Clark netted from the spot after a Thames defender handled the ball. Robert Bryce and Jimmy Yardley then scored before the interval and as the players left the pitch the crowd of 6,029 could not believe the scoreline.

The second half started the same as the first with Thames having all the play only for the Town to net four more in the final twenty minutes with McNestry, Yardley, Jackie Slicer and Archie Heslop all on the scoresheet.

For the record, Thames finished bottom of the table in 1931/32, did not seek re-election and quietly folded never to be seen again.

Luton: Harford, Kingham, Hodgson, Clark, McGinnigle, Fraser, Heslop, McNestry, Yardley, Bryce, Slicer.

Thames Association: Bailey, Donnelly, Smith, Warner, Spence, Igoe, Le May, McCarthy, Perry, Phillips, Mann.

Below: Jimmy Yardley forces Thames 'keeper, and former Hatter, Harry Bailey into a save. 

As the 1930/31 season drew to a close, money problems re-surfaced as they have done with predictable regularity throughout the club’s history. The upshot of this was to transfer half-back Archie Clark to Everton for £1,250. Clark had been the Town’s record signing in 1928 but this counted for nothing as he became yet another of the ‘family jewels’ sold to keep the club afloat.

Although the thoughts of manager Kay are not recorded he was no doubt miffed at the transfer and only a few days after the transaction was signing a new contract himself when Southampton of Division Two stepped in to offer him the trappings of a buying club rather than a selling one.

The Town’s directors acted very quickly and only two weeks after Kay’s departure had appointed Harold Wightman to the hot seat at a salary of £300 per annum plus the free use of the club owned house at 24 Kenilworth Road. Wightman, who had been assistant manager at promoted Notts County the previous season, had built a reputation as one of the games new breed of ‘thinkers’.

Whether he questioned the Board’s ambitions is not known but only two months after pleading abject poverty they splashed out an amazing £1,800 on two Bolton Wanderers players, Fred Kean and Tom Tait. Ex-England international half-back Kean and highly regarded goalscorer Tait were seen as a major coup by football commentators and perhaps an indication of the new progressive attitude of the Board.

Behind the scenes, though, it soon became obvious that the Town could not afford such an outlay and when the team failed to make a meaningful impact in the new season and it was realised that the bold bid to ‘chase the dream’ was not going to reap fruit, costs had to be cut and player sales became inevitable. In March 1932 centre-forward Jimmy Yardley was sold to Charlton for £850 and young winger George Turner, who had made only 16 appearances in the first team since signing the previous summer, went to Everton for £1,000.

On the face of it, the books had been balanced but the Town took a further 18 months to finally pay off Bolton for Tait and Kean despite many threats of reporting the matter to the footballing authorities.

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With all the off field money problems facing the club, a good run in the F.A.Cup was vital and after an amazing 5-0 win at Swindon and a 4-1 replay victory over Lincoln the reward was a tie with Division Two leaders Wolves at Kenilworth Road.

A decent crowd of 16,945 turned up to see Wolves take an early lead when Wilf Lowton scored from the spot after Hugh McGinnigle handled a goalbound shot. This fifth minute upset did not upset the Town unduly and if they had taken their chances they would have been ahead at the interval.

Presumably something was said to the Wolves players at half-time, as during the second period they were all over the Town and pulled the defence all over the place before Charlie Phillips doubled the lead after showing clever anticipation to get on the end of a cross.

The game was not without its twists and turns though as, with Wolves relaxing in the final quarter, the Town put on a grandstand finish with Jimmy Yardley volleying in Andy Rennie’s cross with five minutes to go and then seeing a shot hit a defender on the line, then a post before going behind in the closing seconds.

Luton Town: Imrie, Kingham, Hodgson, Kean, McGinnigle, Fraser, McNestry, Tait, Yardley, Rennie, Slicer.

Wolverhampton Wanderers: Whittaker, Lowton, Lumberg, Rhodes, Hollingsworth, Richards, Phillips, Bottrill, Hartill, Deacon, Barraclough.

Below: A packed crowd for the visit of Wolves.

During the summer of 1932, boxing and wrestling tournaments were put on at Kenilworth Road in a bid to raise funds to pay the players wages over the close season as well as try to make some inroads into the debt owed to Bolton. Any money raised, though, was spent on bringing Tom Mackey and Davie Hutchison from Sheffield Wednesday and Carlisle respectively.

It can be seen that the Board were desperate for promotion but their handling of the financial side of the club was bizarre and surely not something they would have subjected their own companies to.

The next bombshell to hit the club was the possibility of allowing greyhound racing at Kenilworth Road. In October 1932 a request was made from a Mr Lewis Cooper to use the ground for greyhound racing. Having checked out Mr Cooper with the National Greyhound Association, a deputation of directors paid a visit to Watford, who then had a greyhound track at Vicarage Road, and Bristol Rovers, who then played at Eastville, another elliptical ground with plenty of room for greyhound racing.

A proposition was then put forward that a lease be granted for 7, 14 or 21 years on the basis of £4,000 up front and then £500 per annum rent for the first seven years, £650 per annum for the second seven years and £750 per annum for the third. Also any damage to the pitch to be made good at their expense.

The greyhound consortium came back with a counter bid of £20,000 for the ground lock, stock and barrel which was accepted by the Board subject to approval and licence by the National Greyhound Association. The approval was not forthcoming presumably because it became blindingly obvious that Kenilworth Road was not suited for anything that involved a track being laid unless, of course, the club had decided to seek an alternative home.

Fortune then smiled on Luton Town Football Club in the shape of a magnificent run in the F.A.Cup which took the Hatters through to the quarter-finals for the first time in their history.

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It would be fair to say that the Town’s F.A.Cup first round pairing with Kingstonian of the Isthmian League hardly caused a ripple of excitement in the environs of Kenilworth Road given the fact that the Town had never got anywhere near the ‘twin-towers’ of Wembley in the past.

Kingstonian were just about the strongest non-league outfit around at the time as proved by their lifting of the Amateur Cup at the season’s end and the championship the following year. A crowd of 7,701 gathered at Kenilworth Road to see the Town lucky to escape with a 2-2 draw and the replay was no easier, watched by a then record crowd at Richmond Road, but this time the Hatters scraped through 3-2.

It was off to uncharted territory in the next round with the club’s first ever meeting with Stockport County of Division Three (North). Although the final scoreline of 3-2 in the Town’s favour looked close, a 3-1 lead had been built up only for the home side to net a consolation in the final minute. Stockport goalkeeper, Thomas Gale, was blamed for two of the goals including one from the Town’s Fred Kean which he thought was drifting wide and therefore made no attempt at saving.

A hard fought 0-0 draw at Barnsley, again of Division Three (North), brought the Tykes back to Luton and following a 2-0 win in the replay, with prolific marksman Andy Rennie bagging both goals, F.A.Cup euphoria at last swept through the streets of the town.

The reason for the euphoria was plain to see as the mighty Tottenham were to be the visitors to Kenilworth Road for the fourth round tie.

Although ‘only’ a Division Two side, Spurs were on their way to promotion at the season’s end and boasted a proud F.A.Cup pedigree having won the trophy in both 1901 and 1921.

Tottenham supporters, confident after their teams 6-0 win at Oldham in the previous round, started arriving at Luton very early on the day of the game having caught the first available trains out of London and by 7.30am were staging an impromptu kickabout on the Moor.

By mid-day queues stretched all the way down Hazelbury Crescent and two hours later the gates were closed with 17,213 in the ground. Some 21 coaches from London were parked along Dunstable Road and the site of the old Town ground was used as an overspill car park.

The pitch was hard and icy and would doubtless be regarded as unplayable today but the Town’s groundstaff had used a steamroller on the morning of the game to iron out the ruts and at least make the playing area flat.

With the gates closed, various supporters walked around the pitch in fancy dress including one using two frying pans as cymbals. Such was the crush that younger supporters were allowed to sit in front of the perimeter walls and fences.

The Luton players were definitely up for the game and adapted far better to the conditions for within 20 minutes they were two goals to the good courtesy of strikes from Tom Alderson and Tommy Tait with both efforts being set up by Arthur Mills, deputising for the injured Rennie.

Spurs huffed and puffed in an effort to get back into the game but Taffy O’Callaghan’s shot that hit the bar was the closest they came to scoring. During the last ten minutes the roars from the crowd reached a crescendo and on the final whistle thousands of supporters rushed on to the pitch to chair off their heroes. This match represents the earliest known film footage of a game at Kenilworth Road.

Enthusiasm waned slightly when it was learned that the Town’s reward was a trip to Halifax but by the time of the game over 2,000 supporters had travelled the Shay to swell the crowd to a record 29,235.

Halifax, another team the Town had never met before, had seen off Darwen, Workington, Doncaster and Chester in the earlier rounds and were supremely confident of progressing to the quarter-finals for the first time in their history also.

The team travelled to Halifax on the day of the game leaving Luton on the 9.02am train which was due to arrive at 2.00pm.only an hour before kick-off. The Town had written beforehand to the London, Midland and Scottish railway informing them of the importance of the engagement and that the party must arrive at Halifax at the time stated.

As the team arrived, snow fell heavily and the lines had to be swept before the game finally started with again the Town the quicker to adapt to the treacherous conditions. With the snow beginning to fall once more Tait fired the Town into the lead after 20 minutes and soon after the referee called the players off as the blizzard obscured the touchlines.

The players were off the pitch for 30 minutes while the storm passed and as floodlights were not around in those days there was a danger the game would not finish. As such, the referee made the players change round at half-time without leaving the field and as the snow began to fall once more Alan Nelson made the game safe by tapping in after a shot from Rennie was parried by the goalkeeper.

By now, all Luton supporters felt that the Town could go all the way and even when it was announced that Everton at Goodison Park were to be the opponents in the quarter-final it was seen as merely a stepping stone on the inevitable march to Wembley.

Three special trains, one of which had a huge boater mounted on the front of the engine, and countless coaches carried several thousand Luton supporters to Liverpool on the big day and when the turnstiles stopped clicking 55,431 spectators were present generating receipts of £4143-6-4 (£4,143.32) which was a huge amount of money at the time. This time the team travelled up on the Thursday prior to the game and stayed at Southport.

With Alderson failing to recover from an injured shoulder, Mills returned to the side but commentators did not feel that this would affect the shape of the team over much. The choice of Rennie to play at inside-forward rather than central striker did, however, cause a few eyebrows to be raised but everyone assumed that the manager, Harold Wightman, knew what he was doing.

As it turned out Rennie was clattered early on and spent the majority of the game as a limping passenger on the wing in those far off days before substitutes. By the time Rennie was injured, Everton were already one goal to the good as the Town found difficulty in adapting to the wide open spaces of Goodison. If the game had been staged at Kenilworth Road, doubtless Everton would have struggled within its cramped confines as did Tottenham earlier.

Although Kean, who wished to add to the F.A.Cup winners medal he earned with Bolton in 1929, was everywhere trying to bolster up his overworked defence, the clever Everton forwards seemed to find the back of the net with increasing regularity. When the score reached 0-3 the game became a virtual walkover and finished in a disappointing 0-6 defeat.

It was scant consolation to the Town that they received a large share of the massive gate, that they restricted the great Dixie Dean to only one goal and that their cup exploits would mean exemption to the third round in the following year’s competition. They truly felt that they would win it.

Everton, of course, did go on to lift the trophy, overcoming Manchester City 3-0 in the final.

Luton Town: Harford, Kingham, Mackey, Kean, McGinnigle, Fraser, Mills, Nelson, Tait, Alderson, Roberts.

Tottenham Hotspur: Nicholls, Felton, Whatley, Colquhoun, Levene, Meads, Howe, O’Callaghan, Hunt, Hall, Evans.

Below: Hats off to Luton as Tottenham are beaten 

To help the club on the road to the ‘Twin Towers’ of Wembley a new ditty was written.

“O, Play up the Town!” let spectators all shout,

And let the team know there’s Strawhatters about;

Let everything go with a cheer and a swing,

Encourage your forwards, and goals it will bring.

Let your shouting back up every movement to score,

Cheer up your defenders with many a roar.

Don’t let the team think you don’t care if they lose,

For this thing is certain, “they” will win if “you” choose.

So, “Play up the Town!” let your shouts reach the sky,

If you back up your team, they’ll never say die;

Don’t grumble and grouse, meet reverse with a grin.

To boo your own team is a shame and a sin.

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Only four days after the historic F.A.Cup victory over Tottenham it was back to the bread and butter of league football once more and a re-arranged game against the Bees.

As there were no floodlights, the game had to be played in the afternoon and, coupled with this, many supporters felt sure that the match would be postponed as the previous Saturday’s ice had turned to mud as a thaw set in. These factors resulted in a crowd of only 3,044 turning up.

The contest did go ahead despite the conditions and all the Hatters supporters were pleased that it did as a hat-trick from Tommy Tait helped the Town into a 4-1 interval lead.

Eventual champions Brentford fought back with a vengeance though, and in the end the Town were lucky to hang on at 5-5. Jack Holliday scored all five for Brentford, a club record standing to this day while the scoreline represents the only 5-5 league draw for the Hatters in their history.

Luton: Harford, Kingham, Mackey, Kean, McGinnigle, Fraser, Mills, Nelson, Tait, Alderson, Roberts.

Brentford: Baker, Stevenson, Hodge, Ware, Bain, Burns, Hopkins, Walsh, Holliday, Scott, Crompton.  

Below: The 1932/33 FA Cup heroes - (l to r) Harford, Mackey, Kean, McGinnigle, Fraser, Mills, Nelson, Tait, Brown, Alderson, Roberts

Since the erection of the new stand in 1922 nothing had been done to the ground and by 1933 it was beginning to look tired. Behind the Kenilworth Road goal was a cinder bank, while along the Beech Hill Path side and behind the Oak Road goal was wooden plank terracing. All this was open to the elements as was the Maple Road end of the main stand which was another cinder bank known locally as ‘Scotch Corner’ in view of its proximity to the ‘Scotch colony’ in the streets off Dallow Road which had migrated to Luton from Falkirk with the Davis Gas Stove company.

The ground, though, was still not yet owned by the club and one of the first things organised by new chairman Charles Jeyes, who replaced the long serving Ernest Gibbs in April 1933, was to enter into negotiations with the landlords for its full and final purchase.

The £8,037 originally agreed with the landlords in 1923 had been slowly whittled down to £5,000 by successive small lump sum payments by the club over the years and an overdraft was arranged with Westminster Bank to finally complete the transaction. The football club now owned the ground subject, of course, to a bank charge.

Heartened by this news, the Supporters Club now re-doubled its efforts to improve the facilities at the ground and raised the not insignificant sum of £690 needed to cover the Beech Hill Path side as far as Ivy Road and concrete the terracing. This was carried out during November and December 1933 and was christened the “Bob Stand’ later changed to ‘Bobbers” as it cost a bob (one shilling - 5p) to stand there.

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During the summer of 1933 new chairman Charles Jeyes made his ambitions quite clear when he warned manager Harold Wightman that another poor league showing to match the previous season’s 14th position would not be tolerated.

Wightman took on board this threat to his position and decided on a major cull of his playing staff retaining only ten from the previous campaign. He then decided that the new recruits on the playing side should be experienced, with the majority of his new signings having played in the top flight at some time in their career.

George Martin, who had played alongside Dixie Dean at Everton, and who was later to manage the Hatters on two occasions was the most famous of the new signings, but Bill Pease from Middlesbrough had played for England a few seasons before.

The new season kicked off with a game at near neighbours Northampton, with the Town running out victors away from home for the first time since the previous Boxing Day. The 3-2 win was a personal triumph for centre-forward Tom Tait, who bagged all three Luton goals to add to the 43 he had already scored in the club’s colours in only 69 starts since signing from Bolton two years previously.

The first home game came two days later, on Bank Holiday Monday, with relegated Charlton the visitors. A crowd of 11,904 turned out to see Tait on target again in a 2-1 victory, with that other prolific marksman, Andy Rennie, netting the other. This game marked the return to the side of full-back Tom Mackey who, after reporting for pre-season training, returned home to apparently join the Police Force! The supposed internal dispute was eventually sorted out, with the Town at one stage writing to the Chief Constable of Durham pointing out that Mackey was under contract, thus enabling the no nonsense defender to resume his illustrious Town career which continued in a coaching capacity once his playing days were over.

The second home game of the season, played on the following Saturday, was to prove an attendance barometer as far as the directors were concerned. They were more than pleased when 10,745 filed through the turnstiles to see if the good start could be maintained at the expense of Torquay United.

The supporters were disappointed to hear that Tait had suffered a leg injury during training and was unable to play. His place was taken by Tom Bell, whose first professional club was Torquay. Coincidentally, Torquay included Albert Hutchinson who started his career with the Hatters.

The game began very evenly with both sides having difficulty in controlling the bouncing ball, but gradually the Town got on top and it came as no real surprise when Rennie opened the scoring after 20 minutes with a tap-in, following unselfish play by Bell.

The Hatters were denied a penalty ten minutes later when Torquay’s Don Welsh blatantly handled a shot from Martin but soon after Rennie was on the spot to hit home number two after a strike from Bell rebounded off the bar.

The rest of the half was all Luton, with the unlucky Bell heading against a post and shots from Rennie and skipper Fred Kean being brilliantly saved by Percy Maggs in the Torquay goal.

The Torquay players came out for the second half determined to attack with a vengeance, having received a good talking to during the interval. They soon reduced the arrears when Welsh scored direct from a free-kick after Martin had up-ended George Stabb on the edge of the box.

For a time, Torquay had the upper hand but when Welsh punched away a cross from Martin in the area the referee was alive to the offence this time and Kean made no mistake from the resultant penalty.

It was now the Town’s turn to force the issue and, soon after, Bell got the goal his unselfish play deserved, when he headed home a cross from Pease. Two minutes later, George Pearson set up a simple chance for Rennie and, straight from the restart, Bell took the ball past two defenders and the goalkeeper to literally walk it into the net. This devastating spell of play had therefore resulted in four goals in five minutes.

The Hatters were now rampant and five minutes later Martin, despite being fouled by Torquay’s Lew Tapp, managed to get his shot in as Maggs advanced for goal number seven and the same player cleverly backheeled number eight after a hard cross from Pearson had rebounded off a defender.

Despite all the heavy pressure, Torquay still tried to make a game of it and managed to break upfield and, with the Luton defence scattered, Hutchinson headed home a long cross to reduce the deficit a shade. The Hatters were soon back on top, however, and with the final minutes ticking away Pease netted before Rennie knocked in his fourth and the Town’s tenth.

This amazing 10-2 win was obviously a record for the Town at the time and everyone thought it would stand forever, but the exploits of a certain Joe Payne, a couple of years later, knocked that on the head.

Luton Town: Mittell, Kingham, Mackey, Kean, McGinnigle, Fraser, Pease, Martin, Bell, Rennie, Pearson.

Torquay United: Maggs, Fowler, Tapp, Lievesley, Welsh, Pickersgill, Steele, Harker, Stabb, Hutchinson, Ryder.

Below: The crowd is in place to see Town score 10 past an unfortunate Torquay.

Unfortunately, the good start to the 1933/34 season could not be maintained and frustratingly inconsistent form saw crowds drop back. Although the Town were always on the fringes of the promotion chase it was all too much. What was needed was another extended run in the F.A.Cup competition.

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In view of their cup exploits of the previous season, the Town were granted exemption to the third round for the 1933/34 competition and, as a further reward, were drawn out of the hat to play mighty Arsenal, the team of the 1930’s. It was immediately announced that admission prices for the game would be around three times the charge for normal league games but this seems to have been grudgingly accepted by the supporters such was the drawing power of the Gunners at the time.

In scenes reminiscent of the game against Tottenham twelve months earlier, supporters started arriving from London on the milk trains waking up the good folk of Luton with their rattles and bells.

The gates were closed before kick-off with a record crowd of 18,641 present and every vantage point, including the roof of the new Bobbers Stand, taken. Quite wisely those on the roof were quickly moved both for their own safety and also for that of the spectators below them.

In the shock of the decade, Arsenal had lost at Walsall of Division Three (North) at the same stage of the previous season’s competition and were determined not to become headline news for all the wrong reasons once more.

Understandably, the game was very tense and edgy with the Town bridging the skills gap with effort and determination.

With very few chances created by either side the game seemed to be petering out for a replay when, with 15 minutes left, Luton half-back Charlie Fraser was hurt in a tackle. A huge gap then appeared on the right where Fraser would normally have been stationed and England winger Cliff Bastin took full advantage and skipped down the wing before putting over a superb cross that was headed home by Jimmy Dunne.

The Town could not fight back from this bodyblow and had to be content with their share of the £3,000 gate.

Luton Town: Harford, Kingham, Mackey, Kean, McGinnigle, Fraser, Pease, Martin, Bell, Rennie, Hutchison.

Arsenal: Moss, Male, Hapgood, Jones, Roberts, John, Coleman, Bowden, Dunne, Bastin, Beasley.

Below: A panoramic view of the action.

With the growth in population in the town and surrounding area, the club’s board was determined to provide Division Two football as they felt that the support would be forthcoming. Although crowds had dropped off with the slump in form, the average attendance was still 2,500 higher than in 1932/33 which gave them the necessary confidence to ‘go for broke’ once more.

Over the course of the 1934/35 season the first seeds were laid for a side that would eventually produce one of the club’s finest teams. George Stephenson was signed from Aston Villa, Fred Roberts from Birmingham, goalkeeper Joe Coen from Bournemouth and a promising wing-half from Bolsover Colliery by the name of Joe Payne.

Long time servant and record goalscorer Andy Rennie had now reached the veteran stage and was replaced by prolific marksman Jack Ball in October 1934 but even his 30 goals could not fire the Town to promotion.

As the season was approaching its climax a double bombshell hit the streets of the town. Billy ‘Buster’ Brown who had finally come good after several seasons at Kenilworth Road and top scorer Sam Bell who had arrived at Luton from Norwich for £100 at the end of the previous season were sold to Huddersfield and Tottenham respectively. Both transfer fees were over £2,000 and represented a record for the club.

Supporters were naturally up in arms over the decision to sell these major assets at such a crucial time and threats were made in the local press to boycott the club. The directors had, however, been very canny as it can now be seen that even if the Town had achieved maximum points from their remaining games they still would not have won promotion and around £5,000 had been added to the war chest ready for a fresh tilt at the title the following year. It gives no great pleasure to also report that neither player set the world alight after leaving the Hatters.

The one sad loss that particular season, for which the board could not be blamed, was that of wing-half Charlie Fraser then at the peak of his powers. His leg fracture during the Aldershot home game at Kenilworth Road became folklore in Luton as the break ‘like a gunshot’ could be heard all around the ground. Unfortunately Fraser would not play again which made it three players in five years, the others being Sid Reid and Tommy Hodgson, who were forced into early retirement from the game following injury.

In an amazing game at Southend in December 1934 the home side were awarded a second penalty for handball shortly after the break. Luton skipper Tom Mackey disputed the decision to such an extent that he was firstly booked and then sent off.

Southend scored from the spot to put them three goals up, but so aggrieved were the ten men that they fought back to level the score before the end.

Sendings-off before the war were extremely rare and the Town suffered only seven dismissals during the period 1920-1939 in first team games. Most were for outright thuggery right in front of the referee!

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In 1934/35 the Town received another exemption to the third round of the F.A.Cup competition and drew another plum tie in the shape of Division One side Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

The Town were going through one of their wonderfully inconsistent periods where they would win by four goals one week then lose by the same scoreline the next. Chelsea were in a comfortable mid-table position in the top flight.

A crowd of 46,492 gathered to see the Town put in one of their better performances against strangely lacklustre opponents and it was no real surprise when Sam Bell forced the ball home, following a corner, five minutes before the interval. The goal was hotly disputed, as many in the ground felt that the ball had not crossed the line and the London press had a field day trying to prove the impossible by hanging a ball from the crossbar to show how photographs can be deceiving, especially when taken from anywhere apart from along the goal line.

Despite all the protests the goal stood and it was not until the last ten minutes that Chelsea decided to make a game of it and push everyone forward in an effort to score an undeserved equaliser. This they did when James Argue shot through a crowd of players to take the tie back to Luton.

In the days before floodlights cup tie replays had to be fought out in mid-week afternoons which in turn would normally affect the attendance. To say that there was unprecedented interest in the game is an understatement as realised by the town’s major employers who faced a major display of downing tools on the afternoon of the match.

Skefco, George Kent, Vauxhall, Electrolux, Davis Gas Stove Co and all the hat factories saw sense and decided to close from mid-day, with only the first two asking employees to go back after the match to make up for lost time.

The gates were closed thirty minutes from kick-off but such was the weight of numbers outside anxious to see the game that the Kenilworth Road end gates were forced open and many hundreds gained admission without paying, which added to the crush inside.

A deputation of police officers had to force a way through the throng to allow the Chelsea players and directors in, while hundreds of spectators lined the roof of the Bobbers Stand. This time the police were unable or unwilling to remove them nor the hardy individual who had climbed to the top of a telegraph pole.

The official attendance was 23,041 which smashed the previous record by over 4,000 but this figure did not account for the non-payers. The ground was dangerously overcrowded and it is a minor miracle that no-one was badly injured or even killed.

The game kicked off with a double line of spectators on the running track and rather more on the Bobbers Stand/Kenilworth Road corner where there had to be a major re-shuffle every time there was a flag kick.

The Town were forced into a couple of changes from the first game with Tom Mackey suspended and Billy Thayne injured. Harry Reece and Hugh McGinnigle took their places.

Again Chelsea did not seem to have much stomach for a fight and their attempts to play ‘first division football’ were doomed to failure against a fired up Luton side that fought for every ball as if their lives depended on it.

The game remained scoreless until 25 minutes from the end when a throw-in from Charlie Fraser to Fred Roberts saw the latter hook the ball into the goalmouth where Chelsea goalkeeper Jackson could only parry the ball to Jack Ball who shot into an empty net.

The second goal came soon after when Bob MacAuley was dispossessed by Jack Ball who played the ball inside to Fred Roberts who smashed it home.

With 20 minutes left the injured Reece became a passenger on the wing but even then Chelsea could not raise themselves from their torpor and at the final whistle Luton supporters raced on to the pitch to chair off their heroes.

Sadly, the story does not have a happy end as the Town went out at Burnley in the next round, but the cup run had put a few more pennies into the pot which was added to when several honest supporters sent in postal orders to pay for their illegal entry to the Chelsea tie.

Luton Town: Coen, Smith, Reece, Brown, McGinnigle, Fraser, Crompton, Bell, Ball, Roberts, Stephenson.

Chelsea: Jackson, Barber, MacAuley, Russell, Craig, Miller, Spence, Argue, Bambrick, Gibson, Horton.

Below: Spectators line the roof of the Bobbers Stand.

After the new terracing was erected on the Bobbers side of the ground at the end of 1933, three members of the supporters club banded together to see whether the space underneath could be utilised. One Saturday morning the intrepid trio dug their way in with borrowed implements to start a project that would then occupy every weekend for the best part of 18 months and which involved the removal of many tons of soil.

On 5th July 1935 the new club rooms were opened which extended virtually the length of the pitch. For their time the facilities were superb and consisted of a games room and bar, a dining room as well as a snack bar which were open every day of the week with all profits being ploughed back into the football club.

The annual membership was 1/2d (7p), with life membership of 21/- (£1.05) which were to remain unchanged for many years. The local population also caught on to the bar facilities at the Bobbers Club as most of Bury Park had been built on Quaker owned land which meant no pubs in the area due to conditions imposed with the original sale!

The final position of fourth was not good enough for Luton Town chairman Charles Jeyes who demanded promotion. He made money available to Harold Wightman who went out to buy Jock Finlayson and Billy Fellowes from Clapton Orient and Jack Nelson from Wolves with all three set to become firm favourites at Kenilworth Road.

Everyone at Kenilworth Road was full of confidence as the new season started, perhaps more so than in any previous season but unfortunately no-one told the players who got off to the worst start for a decade losing the first three matches and then drawing the next two.

The resignation of manager Harold Wightman on 10th October 1935 was not totally unexpected, but whether he was pushed has never been revealed, ‘mutual agreement’ being put out by the club to the local press. Wightman maintained that he did not need to resign but felt he ought to for the good of the club.

Wightman had put together the nucleus of a side that was to go on to bigger and better things, but patience was not a virtue of the Board and most particularly Jeyes who now had the opportunity to take a more hands on approach to the management of the team. Wightman,the ex-Notts County man, who had turned down overtures from his old club during the summer, eventually became manager of Mansfield before taking on Nottingham Forest up to the outbreak of the war. Wightman died in 1945 aged only 50.

Whatever was said behind the scenes after the removal of Wightman seemed to work as the team went on a run of twelve wins and a draw from the next thirteen games. The league game attendance record was also broken during this run, when 18,100 turned up to see the 1-0 victory over Notts County on Boxing Day, as the team pushed themselves up from the bottom of the table right into the promotion fight. Many supporters felt that the new players would have found their feet eventually anyway and that the early season form was just a bedding down period.

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