A Midnight Feast In Luton

This particular article has been in the pipeline for ages, but only now have I found the time to complete it.

It follows on from an article published on 08-Feb-2021 – the-midnight-train-to-luton – where I shared a train carriage with the former Luton boss, Mike Newell.

The article prompted a response from a regular visitor to this site, Danny, who, in a comment he left, mentioned an encounter with the legend that is Brian Stein, at Huntingdon racecourse.

His comment prompted me to recall my own (almost) encounters not only with Brian Stein but also his brothers, Mark and Edwin.

Now, on a Saturday night, it was traditional to frequent a certain public house establishment in the town centre.

As last orders approached, it became a regular occurrence for me to leave the pub and make my way up High Town Road to use the Chinese takeaway in Havelock Road.

As a regular visitor to this takeaway, I became friends with the owner and whilst waiting for my order to be cooked, we often chatted about football.

One night, as the cook worked his magic, the owner told me I had just missed some footballers.

On asking who they were, he said they were the Stein brothers and that they were regular visitors to his shop for a once a week treat.

When I asked just how close I had come to bumping into them, he said it was ten minutes or so.

Over the weeks, I varied my departure time from the pub in the hope of bumping into them, but the owner of the takeaway used to smile wryly and either tell me I had missed them, or they had not been in yet.

One night, I asked him if he was winding me up, he just smiled and carried on with his business.

A couple of weeks later, as I entered the shop, he had a broad smile on his face and pulled out a match day programme from beneath the counter, thrust it towards me and told me I could have it.

Scrawled across the cover were the signatures of Mark and Brian Stein, thanking him, he then revealed that some time ago they had changed their routine and were now coming into his shop midweek.

To this day I still think he was, in his own way, having a laugh at my expense for several weeks, but I was not going to complain because the food was just so good and made up for the fact I had (almost) bumped into the Stein brothers.

Next up, in this occasional series, the night I did physically bump into Paul Elliott.

COYH’s

Previous article by Mad Hatter

Luton – 17 Years So It Would Seem