“There are no easy games in this League…”

I still joke with my good pal Mark Creighton about how many times we both used to trot out the above line in my interviews with him over the course of his three years at Kidderminster. Further still once I saw him drop it into an interview with his new club, Oxford, just recently.

So why don’t Luton get it?

Oxford have spent big this year. Very big. All things being relative, of course. They aren’t paying Creights £100,000pw but it is safe to say that with consistent 6,000 gates each week, a huge fan base, generous donators and not a bigger club anywhere nearby, they have a bit to chuck about. Their squad reads like a who’s who of non-league football. Experience and quality – from Billy Turley to James Constable, from Mark Creighton to Adam Green, they’ve got a big, big chance of making it this year. But I don’t think that’s the only reason they’re bound to succeed this term. After all, money can only take you so far.

The U’s have got a sound work ethic, a strong base of grafters, and a management and playing set-up that knows what it takes to win football matches at this level.

So why don’t Luton get it?

Oxford have won most of their matches this year, played under pressure at home and beaten the big boys, and gone away to horrible grounds and dug out results. They can topple Stevenage at home, but also tackle Gateshead away. It’s about the know-how. Crucially, they understand you can’t win every game.

They lost for the first time this season against Mansfield just recently. It will have hurt.

But the key is that for all the games they’ve won, for all the 10,000+ crowds for the big games at the Kassam, they understand that you can’t win them all, and that some things will go against you. I understand the reaction of the United players to losing at Mansfield was first rate. ‘We’ll come again,’ they insisted. Quite right they did – winning both of their next games. Nobody was calling for Chris Wilder’s head just because they had a bad day.

So why don’t Luton get it?

Mick Harford, a giant of a man, took control of Luton when nobody would go near them. He’s had a total of 40 points lopped off his totals over the last two seasons and as such they find themselves in the BSP.

Not to worry. He took them down with a bang, winning the JPT Final at Wembley in front of 40,000 of their own fans – downing Football League opposition. On that day he promised Luton had been re-born.
13 games into the new season – they’ve lost just three, and are one point off the play-offs. Not bad eh? So why the blueberry hell is Mick Harford out of a job today?

Luton came down feeling this would be a walkover. They would win each game 4-0 and never be troubled. They lost a first home game of the season against Stevenage in midweek, and all of a sudden the man that gave them so much is out on his ear?

The wording of their statement today suggests they feel they need to move quickly and replace him, of the belief that whoever comes in will comfortably put them top of the League and get them out of this silly division.

Because, you know, every game is easy at this level.

I fear quite a few more wake-up calls coming their way before the term is over.

“We’re quite a humble bunch, to be fair…” Creights tells me of his Oxford team. I’ve no doubt he’s right. But what about over at Kenilworth Road? I think not.

Obviously, Luton just don’t get it.

You have to love the British public…

Think back a year or so ago, maybe more, to the Ross/Brand/Sachs scandal.

At the time, only about half a dozen people who heard the misnomer go out on air actually complained.

Then, because the media got behind it and preached to the nation that this was such a terrible act, hundreds of thousands of folks then complained. None of the dim-wits had actually heard it at the time, but because we’re Brits and love to take the moral high ground, Brand was hounded out of the country, Ross got suspended and Sachs got himself a role in Corrie. All very nice.

Now. Rewind a few years to a match between Manchester United and Liverpool at Old Trafford. United win the game with a late, later goal – United stalwart Gary Neville then proceeds to run half the length of the pitch to go and celebrate provocatively in front of the Liverpool fans. He was never punished.

A few weeks ago, after being racially abused and pelted with banana skins for most of the match against former club Arsenal, Manchester City’s Manny Adebayor raced the length of the pitch after scoring a goal to celebrate in front of them. Not sensible, perhaps understandable.

But oh no, this is precious Arsenal. Everyone decided that Adebayor was public enemy number one, and as such, he has today been fined £25,000 and given a suspended match sentence for his celebration.
How does that work, then? Talk about one rule for one and another for others. Yes he deserved the punishment he got for the stamp on Van Persie – which he has served.

For me this just smacks of typical hypocrisy on behalf of both the game’s authorities and the public. But what would I know?