Gradually things improved with Brown's enthusiasm and astute playing of the transfer market ensuring a final position of 17th which was looked on as a success.

In his first close season in charge, Allan Brown lost no time in attempting to piece together a squad that would take the Town back to where the supporters felt they belonged. The free-transfer signing of veteran centre-half Terry Branston was the catalyst that welded together a mix of youth and experience and after the Town went to the top of the table in February 1968 they never looked back and walked away with the title.

Buoyed by this success, along with the wealth of new directors Reggie Burr and Tony Hunt, owners of insurance giant Vehicle and General, the new season opened as the old one had finished, but the mid-season sacking of manager Allan Brown for 'disloyalty'- he applied for the Leicester job - shocked the football world.

The new man, Alec Stock, failed to make it two successive promotions but made no mistake in 1969/70 aided by the goalscoring exploits of a £17,500 signing from Fulham, Malcolm Macdonald.

At one time, the Hatters seemed capable of walking through Division Two back to a top flight they had left in 1960, but the March 1970 announcement of the collapse of Burr and Hunt's Vehicle and General and a disastrous Easter, when all three games were lost, meant that the meteoric rise came to an abrupt halt. The Vehicle and General collapse reverberated around the corridors at Kenilworth Road for some time and regrettably made the club sellers rather than buyers once more. Macdonald was sold to Newcastle for a then massive £180,000 and without a proven goalscorer, the 1971/72 season was a complete anti-climax after the excitement of the previous four years.

A weary Alec Stock resigned at the season's end to be replaced by Harry Haslam, who had originally come to the club as promotions manager. Although the Town boasted an amazing away record in his first season in charge and reached the quarter-finals of the FA Cup for the first time since 1959, the home record was poor. This was put right, however, in 1973/74 when promotion from a very average Division Two was achieved.