Luton Town Football Club is a professional football club based in Luton, Bedfordshire, England, that competes in the Championship, the second tier of English football. Founded in 1885, they are nicknamed The Hatters due to the historical association of the town with the hat making trade and have played home matches at Kenilworth Road since 1905. The club's history includes one major trophy win, several financial crises, as well as numerous promotions and relegations. Between 1982 and 1992, they were a member of the First Division; they won their first major honour, the Football League Cup, in 1988. Luton Town have a long-standing rivalry with nearby club Watford.
Luton Town was the first in southern England to turn professional. It joined the Football League before the 1897–98 season, left in 1900 because of financial problems, and rejoined in 1920. Luton reached the First Division in 1955–56 and contested a major final for the first time against Nottingham Forest in the 1959 FA Cup Final. The team was then relegated from the top division in 1959–60, and demoted twice more in the following five years, playing in the Fourth Division from the 1965–66 season, before they were promoted back to the top level in 1974–75.
In 1981–82, the club won the Second Division and gained promotion to the First. Luton defeated Arsenal 3–2 in the 1988 Football League Cup Final and remained in the First Division until relegation at the end of the 1991–92 season. Between 2007 and 2009, financial difficulties caused the club to fall from the second tier of English football to the fifth in successive seasons. The last of these relegations, in the 2008–09 season, followed a 30-point deduction for financial irregularities. Luton spent five seasons in non-League football before winning the Conference Premier in 2013–14, securing promotion back into the Football League. Luton were promoted from League Two and League One in successive seasons in 2017–18 and 2018–19 before being promoted to the Premier League in the 2022–23 EFL Championship play-off final.
Luton Town are the first football team to return to the top tier of English football after successive relegations down to the fifth tier of English football.
The club operates a Development Squad, made up of contracted senior players, youth team scholars and trialists, which plays in the Southern Division of The Central League. The club also fields an under-18 team in the Football League Youth Alliance South East Conference. Luton's youth set-up consists of ten Soccer Centres across Bedfordshire and North Hertfordshire, two Centres of Excellence (one in Luton, one in Dunstable), and an Academy in Baldock that caters for players in the under-9 to under-16 age groups.
Luton Town Football Club 2020 Ltd
Rob Edwards
Current season
EFL Championship 2024–25
