Call Me Petty ...

Luton Town FC were relegated from the Football League today - good.

Twenty or so years ago I used to follow my team home and away every week. Around the same time Luton Town banned visiting supporters from their Kenilworth Road Stadium, erected huge fences around the pitch and, if that wasn't enough, they had a plastic pitch that nobody - except the home side of course - enjoyed playing on.

The idea that it was ok to ban supporters from watching their team away from home seemed completely contrary to our football culture in this country. Unlike any other country I believe, football supporters in England have always followed their team away from home in large numbers - at both club and country level - and here was a club preventing this and, further more, getting praise from the government of the day - I remember seeing the Luton Chairman speaking at a Conservative Party conference one year and getting a standing ovation for his stance on travelling supporters.

In recent years Luton Town have, like so many sides, fallen on hard times and I've not felt any sympathy for them at all - in fact, I've enjoyed seeing them struggle.

Perhaps now I'll feel that my grudge has run its course - we'll see. Call me petty ...