Luton Town have come a long way in 20 years - just ask Joe Kinnear, Steve Cotterill and Mike Newell...
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Luton Town haven't always been a club to do things the conventional way, as evidenced by their 30 point deduction at the beginning of the 2008/09 season, but the summer of 2003 highlighted the madness.
When a consortium headed up by John Gurney took over Luton Town in May 2003, the first thing they did was sack Joe Kinnear - despite the popular manager leading the club to ninth in the second tier after returning the Hatters to the division the season before.
Fans were dismayed, threatening to boycott renewing their season tickets in protest against the decision.
John Gurney and his mysterious consortium weren’t willing to bend, though, and came up with an idea they were sure would bring in revenue and get fans back on side.
Luton would host a Manager Idol competition to decide the new boss, with supporters calling a premium phone line to cast their votes. The three final contenders were the recently sacked Kinnear, Steve Cotterill and Mike Newell, who’d left Hartlepool United.
On the day of the announcement, Kinnear claimed he’d had no contact with the club – with Cotterill ruling himself out of the race, it left Newell as the last man standing. Luckily enough, a late flurry of votes saw Newell gazump favourite Kinnear and the, er, competition was saved.
Joe Kinnear had just been sacked as manager, but was still included in the fan vote (Image credit: Getty Images)
“The whole thing was a farce,” Luton Town supporter Steve Moore tells FourFourTwo.
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“There had been protests calling for Gurney to give Kinnear his job back, so it was no surprise he was an early frontrunner. We knew there could only be one winner and that was Mike Newell.
“Manager Idol was like all Gurney’s ideas, a desperate attempt to appease the fans, but we could see through it. We tried to force him out any way we could, but Gary Sweet, who’s now our CEO, and the rest of the supporters’ trust worked out how to get him out. It’s incredible what he managed to do.”
Ryan is a staff writer for FourFourTwo, joining the team full-time in October 2022. He first joined Future in December 2020, working across FourFourTwo, Golf Monthly, Rugby World and Advnture's websites, before eventually earning himself a position with FourFourTwo permanently. After graduating from Cardiff University with a degree in Journalism and Communications, Ryan earned a NCTJ qualification to further develop as a writer while a Trainee News Writer at Future.
