Luton – You Voted David Pleat As The Best

Back in early October, here at Vital Luton Town, we ran an article, and a poll, relating to those who have occupied our managerial hot seat.

The article, entitled – can-you-settle-this-managerial-argument – asked for your views on who you believed was the greatest Luton manager during the period I have been following the Hatters, namely 1968 to 2021.

With our poll facility limited to just four options, I had the difficult job of narrowing the contenders down to just four.

In the end, I opted for:

• David Pleat
• Ray Harford
• Alec Stock

and

• John Still

As I expected, criticism was forthcoming over my selections, with Chris Winter

“Can’t believe the man who took us to our best-ever position in Division 1 isn’t there.”

rightly bemoaning the fact I omitted John Moore, a legend in both capacities as a player and a manager for the Hatters.

Hopefully, a feature, relating to John Moore, will be forthcoming in the next couple of days.

But, returning to our poll, we did have a runaway winner, with 74% of the votes cast going to David Pleat, a man who cemented his career as a managerial great by building Luton sides that played free-flowing, entertaining football.

In joint second were Alec Stock and John Still both with 9% of the vote each.

John Still obviously featured due to his role in guiding the Hatters towards normality in our darkest hour while Alec Stock garnished support for, as Chris Winter sublimely put it:

“Mine was Alec Stock. A genius at finding gems from cast offs.”

With Chris citing Malcolm MacDonald as the perfect example.

Recently, ITV4’s The Big Match Revisited, featured a game in which Fulham were playing. Alec Stock was in the studio, as the Fulham manager at the time, and when asked by the legend that is Brian Moore, about trouble at the game, Alec replied in his ‘posh’ voice:

“None of them were Fulham fans, we do not have ruffians at our club.”

Bringing up the rear, surprisingly, in our poll was Ray Harford, I say surprising because Ray only got 8% of the votes cast, a relatively small percentage considering he guided us to our monumental League Cup win, in the final against Arsenal.

Another who almost made the four contenders was Harry Haslam, known by his nickname of Happy.

He too featured as a studio guest in ITV4’s Big Match Revisited and when asked about his happy demeanour, by Brian Moore, explained it was in his blood and that he was the sort of person that would laugh if somebody fell off their bike but then added he would then check to see if the rider was okay.

We’ve certainly had many characters in the Hatters managerial hot seat, but please keep an eye out for our forthcoming feature on John Moore.

COYH’s