Luton Town Win Means So Much More Than Three Points

This weekend was tough for me, as I was unable to get to the Imps game.

I usually miss the odd game at home, maybe one or two a season. Sadly, I always seem to miss bangers – Bristol Rovers (5-0), Cambridge (6-0) and Ipswich (5-3) stand out in my mind. I had good reason: two were for my honeymoon, and the other I had the actual flu that kept me in bed for almost a week.

This weekend, Chris Wray (better known as Imptoons, often confused with Chris Laming) and I were attacking Equinox 24 2025, a 24-hour relay race where we were attempting to do six laps each of a 10km course. We managed 120km, but he bailed me out with a 70/50 split after one of my knees gave way.

What it meant was missing a game, and we planned to listen in our own way. I tasked Chris Laming (to avoid confusion) with sending me a message if a goal went in. I set off on my first 10km (and the only one that was pain-free for half an hour) thinking I’d get to the end without incident.

11 minutes later, with me around 7km in, my phone went off. Ben House had scored. It felt a bit like Mark Kennedy all over again, an early goal against a supposed league leader, and something to defend. Remember Ipswich and Bolton, 2022/23? That was how I thought it might go.

Imagine my surprise when, after 10km and an early retirement (we intended to do 20 each from the start), I got back to the van to find out we weren’t just winning, we were better as well. We must have been, because one message from famous pessimist and critic Pete Summers said, ‘Only issue with Lincoln’s first half is not being further ahead.’

We must have been good.

I spent the next 45 minutes with frozen peas pressed on my leg, rubbing in different gels and moaning about the phone signal. I learned of their (inevitable) equaliser, and settled into the ‘a point would have been good before kick off’ frame of mind. I had a face on anyway with my injury, so it wasn’t hard to settle on pessimism.

Then, the signal cleared, and we’d got a brace. Unreal scenes when 20km-Chris came back and we had a little cheer. I sent Dad a message of me signing ‘we are top of the league’, something he would sing on away days when we were mid-table. I hope he understood what it meant.

There was a point on the track, a hill that looked out across towards Nottingham, where you could get a signal. Chris watched the highlights during one of his runs. Looking at my times, I could have watched the whole game, but did not. We convened back at the van and again compared notes. It seems City were excellent.

For me, there is so much more to this than a simple win against Luton. This was a watershed moment for us in that it was a team who were playing Premier League football fewer than 500 days ago, a team widely expected to be in the top two this season. Whatever you say about our start, having played them at Sincil Bank, we’ve played one of the division’s top teams. This, for me, felt like the tipping point between ‘good start’ and ‘promising run’.

Anyone can have a good start – after nine games last season, Exeter and Mansfield were in the top seven (so were we). Eventually, there is a result that starts the rot for teams without the minerals for a top-seven push. For us, last season, it was game ten, Birmingham at home, where we won 3-1. Our form from game ten was LLWWDDLLLDDW until Christmas. Mansfield’s was a bit further in, 13 matches, but they lost to Wrexham and collapsed. Exeter was 11 games in against Reading, but you can get a sense of a tipping point.

I thought this was our tipping point. It wasn’t. Will we have one? That’s the big question.

There is no promise that it won’t be Posh, or the Bradford/Stevenage double header that looks harder now than it did in July. It might be the struggling Grecians coming to the Bank and us expecting the win, we don’t know. We do know it won’t be Luton, a side with more players than they need, but no cohesion in terms of how to get them together. For me, that is a huge step.

Like our relay, the Imps’ season will be broken up into sections. Some will be like my last 10km section, no time pressure, enjoying the sunshine (and wearing my full Imps kit, even with red socks). Others will be like the gruelling 4 am shift, a hard slog in the crap weather, ensconced in utter darkness.

The big question is this – will we come out of the season having achieved the target we set ourselves? Nine matches in, and I do feel that maybe, just maybe, we’re more likely to than many felt at the beginning of the season. Me included.