On this day - the 4th February
It was a decent time to be a Town fan in 1953. The Hatters were riding high in the Second Division (now Championship) with a swashbuckling strikeforce of Jesse Pye and Gordon Turner smashing in the goals left, right and centre.
Pye scored in a 1-1 FA Cup draw at First Division Manchester City in front of 38,411 at Maine Road before Turner took centre stage in the replay – on this day 61 years ago. His hat-trick dismantled the Citizens as the Town thumped five past the City defence to advance to the fifth round. 21,991 Luton faces went home happy that day, mumbling, no doubt, that the good times lay ahead.
Fifty-eight years later, on 4th February 2011, that electric victory over City was a dim and distant memory as the Town needed an 85th-minute winner from Luke Graham to see off a stubborn a Gloucester City in the FA Trophy in front of 2,212 souls at a cold Kenilworth Road. How times change.
#COYH