I’m at the stage of my life where I can distinctively recall events from many moons ago but nowadays struggle, when standing in a shopping aisle, to remember what I’ve come to buy.
But, like many, I can vividly recall those early days when I first ventured down to Kenilworth Road to see Luton Town play.
My affair with the Hatters started back in the 1967 / 1968 season when my dad grabbed my hand and decided I was old enough to become a Hatters regular.
A green double-decker bus used to transport us from the Limbury Mead estate and allow us to disembark at the bottom of Biscot Road before walking down Waldeck Road and onto what is now very familiar territory, Dunstable Road.
Walking up Kenilworth Road we used to slip down the alley that ran alongside the ground and enter through the Bobbers Stand turnstiles. My dad used to frequent the same barrier, on the wooden steps, every game, whilst I peered through the barriers at the front, fascinated by the action, the smells and the addictive way of life I had been introduced to.
That first season, perhaps, spoilt me, with the Hatters being guided to promotion by Allan Brown with Bruce Rioch being the top scorer with 27 goals, a wonderful season.
But my early idol wasn’t Bruce Rioch, as a fledgling goalkeeper I idolised Tony Read, I watched his positioning for shots and how he closed down the angles as strikers prepared to unleash their shots. I’d like to believe that my career benefitted from all the observations but, sadly, I called time on what was a promising career between the sticks to take up an evening paper round, delivering the Evening Post, the temptation of having a few coins in my pocket I suppose.
However, before I venture too far off the intent of this article, following some matches we used to visit my grandparents who lived in Cambridge Street. I recall it was quite a walk but a walk I grew to eagerly anticipate as the years passed by.
You see, my dad had let slip that Tony Read owned a car showroom in Park Street and whenever the opportunity arose I used to run ahead of my dad and peer anxiously through the windows hoping to see my first hero, but never without any success.
My dad thought I was mad and often used to mention that old saying:
“Why have a dog and bark yourself!”
It took ages before I really understood what he was on about.
As the passing years turned to decades, someone told me that Tony Read became a publican in a Bedfordshire outpost, I never did investigate it any further, I guess that idolisation phase had passed and was now just a fond memory of those early years that helped shape me into the person I am now.
But when did you start following the Hatters and who was your first idol?
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