Luton

On April 5^th Luton Town and Scunthorpe United will face each other in the Johnston Paint Trophy Final at Wembley. The Hatters are currently rooted to the bottom of League Two, facing relegation from the Football League for the first time in their history, while Scunthorpe are trying to bounce back into the Coca-Cola Championship.

But even with Luton’s plight the fans of the club have got behind the club and bought nearly 38,000 tickets for the final. The allocation of tickets given to Luton is the largest given to any club side for a fixture at the new commercial Wembley—and the club feel they could sell a lot more but are being denied further allocations on grounds of safety.

With Scunthorpe having sold around 12,000 tickets this would leave around 40,000 empty seats at Wembley with a prospect of the final being played in front of a half full stadium—Luton are desperately trying to get their hands on a further allocation of tickets as they believe there is a demand from the people and fans of Luton, but with the Football League and the Wembley safety advisory board feeling the empty seats are needed to provide adequate segregation between the two sets of supporters

All three Police forces concerned with the event, Bedfordshire, Humberside, and the Metropolitan, have stated they see no problems with additional tickets being offered to the Hatters fans as there has been no previous rivalries between the clubs.

This leaves us with the prospect of a final being played in front of a stadium only half full which could affect the atmosphere inside the ground. The Football League's main charge is to attract new supporters to the game and try to increase attendances within the Football League, but with a show piece event such as the Football League Trophy turning away fans from empty sears seems a little silly as with the credit crunch in full swing and clubs looking to maximise income for the bleak times ahead, the prospect of the income that could be generated by theses additional supporters would definitely help fill the coffers of both sides giving them some additional financial breathing room.

With Luton fans set to wear orange and create a large sea of the colour in the stadium, it will certainly brighten up the occasion and hopefully become a springboard for the future.

At Kenilworth Road this afternoon we saw Luton Town taking on Macclesfield desperately needing a win to keep there chances of league survival alive.

Luton came into this game on the back of win against fellow strugglers Grimsby Town and the Hatters hope for the first time this season they could a back to back league win. Macclesfield went into the game on the back of two defeats.

The game kicked off With Luton looked the brighter of the two sides but for there constant pressure in the Macclesfield half they seemed unable to created any real opening or chances, but in the 28^th minute an Asa Hall Driven shot forced Jon Brain into his first save which he palmed away for a corner.

From the resulting Corner George Pilkington had a free head on goal which was blocked on the line by Ahmed Deen. The clearance failed to clear the danger zone and was delivered back in for Sam Parkin to head against two defenders on the line and a great opportunity to make it 1-0 was missed.

At the 32nd minute, Macclesfield almost took the lead themselves when Nat Brown from six yards out with a free header hit the cross bar rather than the back of the net with sighs of relief echoing around Kenilworth Road.

Luton again managed to pressure the Macclesfield goal before the end of the first half. First Keith Keane’s low driven shot was fumbled by the Macclesfield Goalkeeper and forced behind for a corner. From the resulting Corner the Macclesfield Goalkeeper pushed the ball on to the cross bar but Martins was unable to take advantage.

After the break Luton came out the brighter but Macclesfield were beginning to force there way into the game but as in the first half sides were unable to create any real chances or test the Goalkeepers until.

But in the 72^nd minute, an extremely bizarre piece of refereeing. Chris Martin floated a ball into an unmarked Asa Hall who looked was looking to pounce but he miscued his shot and it trickled between his legs, But the referee called play back for a penalty and by the looks of it on advice of the assistant referee.

Tom Craddock slotted the penalty away to give town the lead. The game petard out with both side still struggling to make chances and Luton for the first time managed to there first back to back win of the season and the slim, hope of survival still lingers.

Luton will at need to win all of there remaining Fixtures to stand a realistic chance of staying in the football league and with only seven games remaining.

There are now nine games left and Luton Town are still 12 points from safety, but the dream is still alive thanks to a last-gasp winner against one of Hatters' relegation rivals on Tuesday, 2-1.

Grimsby are one of the teams that could go down at Luton’s expense if the unthinkable becomes reality, and they string together a succession of results that could ultimately reverse the survival threatening 30-point punishment handed out to them preseason.

Twelve points, of course, equates to four victories, providing both Chester City and Grimsby lose their four games. But with nine games remaining it still offers a slim hope of escape from relegation to the dreaded non-league.

As simple as stating this fact is, it really is what I will be going on about, football-wise, for the rest of the season. An injustice to the club was made, and in a dream world this injustice would be revoked at the hands of the players who have fought so desperately to keep their team in the English football league.

Luton Town’s remaining games bring with them high expectations.

Obviously, at least four games need to be won to mathematically stand any chance of survival, but as a team who would be comfortably mid-table without the penalty, every match is as winnable as if it were Tottenham beating Liverpool or Man City dethroning their city counterparts United.

The first few games of the remaining nine are all winnable matches against teams below the playoff and automatic promotion positions. If results go Luton’s way, this could relieve the intense pressure that could follow in the last three games of the season.

Fate has been cruel to Luton, matching them up with three of the top four teams in the league for their final games. Only time will tell if they can achieve the unthinkable.

The remaining matches are as follows, with their opponent's current table position in brackets:

March 21: At home to Macclesfield (17th)

March 28: Away to Morecambe (11th)

March 31: At home to Rotherham (15th)

April 11: Away to Lincoln City (12th)

April 13: At home to Chesterfield (10th)

April 18: Away to Barnet (21st)

April 21: At home to Wycombe (third)

April 25: At home to Rochdale (fourth)

May 2: Away to Brentford (first)

Forget the race for the Premiership title. A prominent feeling of predictability could have foreseen the dip in Liverpool’s form which would hand the title on a silver platter to multi title winners Manchester United.

The real battle everyone SHOULD be talking about is the battle of one time top tier team Luton Town’s battle against the odds and an arguably unfair penalty. Relegated in consecutive seasons Luton Town Football Club fell into League Two amid a cash flow crisis and what was said to be "financial irregularities", with the end result, one rarely seen in the footballing world, being a horrific 30-point penalty; the bulk of it attributing to Luton Town coming out of administration against the usual protocol and without a "Company Voluntary Agreement".

So the season for the Hatters was, to say the least, a mammoth challenge in itself. First they would have to get to zero points and then play catch up with which ever teams were languishing dangerously above the drop zone.

The season didn’t start too badly. Yes it could have been better but Luton emerged sometimes victorious, and finally on January 13^th 2009 they clawed their way to zero with a draw against relegation battlers Chester City. Obviously Luton Town would have appreciated getting there sooner, but just the fact they got to zero saved any statistical embarrassment of becoming a team ending a season with minus points, giving them a better chance of getting to a points tally just a little bit more respectable.

It is a shame it seems then that the whole season appears to be heading to something of an anti-climax. Luton have thrown everything at their survival challenge, including fielding their youngest player in the club's history, Jordan Patrick, who was 16 years and 11 days old when he put on his number 29 shirt against Grimsby Town.

They then nearly broke that record a few weeks later when attempting to place 15-year-old Jean-Phillipe Yamfam on the bench, a move which was blocked due to competition rules. A celebrated cup run in the Football League trophy also garnered some credibility in what could be their farewell to the Football League.

Luton Town now find themselves with survival achievable but gradually becoming more seemingly impossible. With 14 games remaining they had a 14 point deficit to 22^nd place and guaranteed safety, a shame considering without the points deduction they would be comfortably safe with a slight glimmer of playoff hopes.

As it stands now they still face that 14 point deficit but with only 11 games remaining to achieve the great escape. One would hope that a simple string of five or so straight victories would put them in with an improved fighting chance, but with Luton’s form book showing no signs of consistency this year, that remains unlikely.

Their saving grace just might be scoring points in most of their remaining games in the hope that Grimsby and Chester City, by far the weakest teams in the league this season, falter and fail to score little in the way of points before the finale of the 2008-09 season.

It would be a great shame to lose a team never at the top of the country's footballing world, but a team who are steeped in history for cup triumphs and a rampant following of Mad Hatters! Relegation would see them out of the league and out of our mindset and something tells you they just might not reappear instantaneously in the following few seasons.

Only time will tell, and an optimistic outcome would give a great story of grit and determination emerging to undo the ridiculous hindrance placed on a team who did not deserve such a gigantic travesty.