With fans’ favourite Alfie Doughty set to reach his century of appearances for Luton Town at Burnley, this is the perfect time to drop the first in our LTFC Originals documentary series, Origins.
Tracing his football journey back to with Epsom Eagles Under-8s, where he played alongside future England internationals Reece James and Conor Gallagher, we catch up with those who influenced Alfie from an early age for this LTFC+ exclusive.
That includes his dad, Simon, as his best friend Ben Dempsey – also a member of that Epsom team and now playing for Ayr United in the Scottish Championship – along with his coaches from the Charlton Athletic Academy.
Alfie had come through the ranks at The Valley, before an injury-blighted spell at Stoke City and loan to Cardiff – where he suffered a season-ending injury against the Hatters on Easter Monday 2022 – before signing for Town that summer.
“I was on holiday,” he recalls of the initial contact from then-Hatters manager Nathan Jones. “I got back from Portugal and I remember getting a call from my agent saying ‘Right, you’ve got an opportunity here to play for Luton’, bearing in mind I knew what they were about because they’d almost got promoted the season before. So in my head I was thinking, ‘Luton’s better than Stoke’, without a shadow of doubt.
“Nathan pitched it to me, because at that stage, my time at Stoke and Cardiff was a down side, but it finally felt like someone believed in me again.”
Without hesitation, he adds: “It’s been the best decision of my career so far.”
Injury delayed his first appearance until the 1-0 victory at Norwich on October 18th that year, and his second win in a Town shirt did not come until the return against the Canaries, on Boxing Day 2022, in his eighth appearance. That was also Rob Edwards’ first victory in charge – but from then on, Alfie didn’t look back, with that glorious day at Wembley in the Championship play-off final being his 35th appearance of a season in which he became firmly embedded at the Kenny.
“I can’t praise Luton enough,” he says. “It’s not just a club, it’s everything when it comes to your family and friends. You spend more time at work then you do at home, so you want it to be a good place.
“For promotion to happen to such a good club in-front of 80,000 people at Wembley, I just think it was brilliant. As a dream, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Now 25 and with a full Premier League campaign and goals against Sheffield United and Fulham on his CV, Alfie is fully focussed on keeping the Hatters in the Championship, scoring his sixth goal in a Town shirt in the 1-1 draw at Sheffield Wednesday last month.
Everyone at Luton loves having him as part of our history – and as we congratulate Alfie on reaching his century and enjoy looking back on his journey, we can’t wait for the next exciting episode of his career at the Kenny!
