After a seven-year break, it was back to a few seasons of mid-table mediocrity until, in 1950/51, the Town came perilously close to suffering relegation back to Division Three, only surviving by dint of a three game winning run as the season drew to a close. 

Luckily this scare was not repeated as the Town's youth policy, nurtured by manager Dally Duncan, began to bear fruit. Future all-time leading scorer for the Hatters, Gordon Turner, learnt the ropes under the expert guidance of ex-England international Jesse Pye and, with a settled side, the Town just missed out on promotion in both 1953 and 1954.

The final push in the fight to earn a Division One spot came in 1954/55 when the Town eventually won through in a titanic struggle with Birmingham and Rotherham. The Hatters finally clinched the runners-up spot on goal average with the Millers the unlucky side to lose out. 

The Town swept all before them early in the following season and were the talk of the football world after beating Newcastle, Blackpool, Wolves and league leaders Sunderland in quick succession, and all by big scores. But the euphoria did not last and a mid-table position at the season's end was still probably more than the supporters expected the previous August.

The Town finished in eighth position in 1957/58, their highest ever, and early in the following campaign actually hit top spot before dropping back to mid-table. If the failure to maintain the challenge for the championship was a disappointment then the supporters were in for a treat in another way.

The Hatters had never progressed beyond the quarter-finals in the FA Cup before but, in 1958/59 after a slow start, the Wembley band wagon took off as the Town fought their way past Leeds, Leicester, Ipswich and Blackpool before seeing off Norwich in the semi-final. Cup euphoria had struck in a big way with a record Kenilworth Road crowd of 30,069 turning out for the quarter-final replay against Blackpool and as many travelling to White Hart Lane for the semi-final which was drawn with the Town winning through in the re-match.

The final itself was a massive disappointment compared to the run up, with the Town not performing on the day, leaving ten man Nottingham Forest to win comfortably 2-1.

From that moment on, the Hatters' fortunes went into a steady decline. Manager Dally Duncan had left in the October before the Cup run started, and it was not until after the final that recently-retired captain and centre-half Syd Owen was appointed into the hot seat.

Owen took over a side that was growing old together and, with the difficulties encountered in moving from the changing room to the manager's chair, the upshot was that the Town had a disastrous 1959/60 season and finished bottom, to be relegated after five years at the top.