Congratulations to our chairman and founder Roger Wash, who was awarded the Kevin Catlin Memorial Trophy for outstanding contribution to Luton Town Football Club at the 2026 Luton Town  Supporters' Trust evening.

Those of us who know Roger will agree that he is far more than a brilliant historian, though he certainly is that. He is also a great friend and a loyal and passionate Luton supporter. 

Below is the speech read by Supporters' Trust chairman Paul Stephens 

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Our outstanding contribution award winner this season was raised at 27 Ivy Road, Luton. (Blue Plaque is in the post!). Apparently, you could see the Kenilworth Road stands from the window of the outside toilet!

They attended their first Luton match, aged four. No gate money changed hands we are told – there was a gap under one of the fences!

On the 4th March 1959 our recipient survived a life-changing trauma. Both parents had insisted on a return to school after lunch, rather than joining a record 30,069 fans who saw an Allan Brown goal secure a first-ever FA Cup Semi Final place for The Hatters! He recalls that matters became considerably worse when he passed his schoolmates AND his teachers, walking past him, in the opposite direction, to the game!

Something of an academic, our winner attended Luton Grammar School. Sadly, they didn’t teach him which end of a screwdriver you have to hold; however he went on to enjoy a successful business career and became a prolific author on his favourite subject.

The person concerned is very highly regarded and respected by his peers throughout professional football and countless thousands of fellow Hatters in the UK and around the world.

This is also someone, who, for example, and of his own volition, will regularly go to see our old groundsman, Dick Wassell, who lost his wife a while back and has some heath issues. Why? To make sure he’s being looked after and is not short of something. No fuss or drama. He does it because he can and because he cares.

Yesterday afternoon he represented the team he leads at the funeral of June Morton, the widow of Bob Morton, who holds the record for the highest number of Football League appearances at Luton Town. Not only that, he made a ten mile detour to take June’s best friend, Anne Shanks, (widow of former player Wally Shanks) to the funeral as well – no fuss - because he cares and he wants to!

In early 2018 he formed a group, with six others, to start a National Lottery funded project, that is now largely complete. Its work is widely recognised as best-in-class in the country and will continue long into the future. He leads a team of trustees and volunteers who have given more than 16,000 hours (432 working weeks) of their time to the project (conservatively worth a third of a million pounds). They’ve searched 1.5 million photographic negatives, to identify and annotate 75,000 related to Luton Town. They’ve also scanned and reproduced every available programme, team line-up and match report since 1885 together with researching and writing every player biography and much else besides. Their YouTube channel has many hundreds of Luton Town related videos and match highlights going back to the 1930s.

Tonight’s award winner has also committed to the permanent loan of his personal collection of Luton Town artifacts and memorabilia to the Group he formed.

Ladies and Gentlemen, for more than forty years he has been the voluntary historian for Luton Town Football Club. Our friend, Roger Wash.
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