Wayne Turner is Mr Luton Town. A hometown boy, he graduated from their academy and played a role in their promotion from the Second Division in 1982.
He’s since been a coach of the u15s and u16s, first team coach, assistant manager, academy manager, and he is now Head of Academy Development at Kenilworth Road. He’s described as a legend for the Hatters, and you can see why.
He was also a one-time loanee at Lincoln City, back in the 1981/82 season. He’s always stuck in my mind after turning up in Panini sticker books in the late eighties with Coventry City, listed as a former Lincoln City player.
In a recent interview with Luton Town’s Trust, he also gave some amusing insight into the time he wanted City to be promoted, so much so that he missed his own promotion party to listen to the Imps on the radio.
In the interview, he speaks about his time at Luton in the early eighties, and of progressing from the youth team set-up to the first team.
“However, I wasn’t really progressing fully for those first couple of years, going in and out of the team, so David Pleat sent me out on loan to Lincoln, under his great friend Colin Murphy,” said Turner.
“I was there for four months, and we went from third from bottom to third from top. I had a great run of first-team football, then came back to Luton and played seven of the last nine games of our brilliant 1981/82 promotion season.
“We ended up as clear champions, but I didn’t get a medal as I hadn’t played enough games at the time – that’s changed these days.”
Not getting a medal at Luton was a blow for the young player, but he had a second chance, another bite of the cherry. Luton were promoted with five games to spare, amassing a huge lead over third-placed Leicester City (a lead that eventually went to 18 points, which sounds familiar).
That left the club free to celebrate, and on May 18th, 1982, they had their promotion party. Meanwhile, in London, City were hoping for a promotion party of their own. A win against Fulham would give us promotion to the Second Division. That gave Turner reason to listen in.
“I was hoping that Lincoln would go up as I had played enough for them and, while our promotion party was going on at the Town Hall, I was sitting in my car listening to their final game against Fulham, which they needed to win,” he added.
“They drew, finished third, and I got no medal there either!”
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